Listening and Spoken Language Therapy is a specialized type of therapy designed to teach a child to use the hearing provided by a hearing aid or a cochlear implant for understanding speech and learning to talk. The child is taught to develop hearing as an active sense so that listening becomes automatic and the child seeks out sounds in life. Hearing and active listening become an integral part of communication, recreation, socialization, education, and work.

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• The philosophy of Listening and Spoken Language Therapy (LSL) is for deaf and hard of hearing children to grow up in a regular learning environment, enabling them to become independent, participating, and contributing citizens in the mainstream society.

• LSL is a parent centered approach that encourages the use of naturalistic conversation and the use of spoken language to communicate.

• LSL is an approach that emphasizes the use of residual hearing to help children learn to listen, process verbal language, and to speak.

• LSL Maximizes the use of the child's aided residual hearing for the detection of sound.

• The earliest possible identification of hearing loss with immediate fitting with amplification, as well as prompt intervention helps to reduce the extent of language delays commonly associated with hearing impairment.

• LSL is based on teaching parents, during their child's individual therapy sessions to emphasize residual hearing and interact with their child using the auditory-verbal approach.

• LSL encourages interaction and mainstreaming children from the beginning with normal-hearing peers.

• Participation in playgroups, library story hours, and attendance in community schools can provide children highly motivating natural language models.