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htm

Prepared for FIRST YEARS' (http://firstyears.org) - Course #1: Special Topics in Speech and Hearing: A Survey
Estabrooks & Marlow (2000) Hierarchy of Listening Skills: A Continuum

Adapted from: Estabrooks, W. & Marlow, J. (2000) The Baby is Listening. Washington DC: Alexander Graham Bell Association, p. 22 -25. Modified from
Erber (1982) and Estabrooks (1994, 1998, 2000).
Detection The ability to respond to the presence or absence of sound. Thus, the child learns to respond to sound, to pay attention to sound, and to
not respond when there is no sound.

Spontaneous awareness of sound.

Child searches for sound by eye glancing or head turning, stopping his or her activity, becoming quiet, startling, and/or
vocalizing.
Selective attention to sound.
Detect and identify a variety of noisemakers and environmental sounds.
Detect and identify sounds (m, ah, oo, ee, sh, s) of the Ling Six-Sound Test
Conditioned response to sound.
Child is required to perform an action when sound is heard (e.g., stack a ring on a pole, put a block on a bucket, put a
marble in water.
Six-Sound Test: These sounds are presented at random intervals for training and monitoring detection skills and for
troubleshooting the cochlear implant; the sounds f, th, h, p, t, etc., can be added to this test, and are especially important for
children with cochlear implants in that these sounds are generally detected more quickly than with hearing aids.
Searches for or localizes sound.
Discrimination The ability to perceive similarities and differences between two or more speech stimuli. The child learns to attend to differences between
and among sounds, or to respond differently to different sounds.

Same/different tasks primarily used for clarification of identification and comprehension errors.
Specific discrimination activities are generally used for remediation, such a confusion of singular and plurals ((flower, flowers)
and/or place, manner and voicing errors (see below).
Identification The ability to label by repeating, pointing to, or writing the speech stimulus heard. 1
Suprasegmentals Segmentals
Prosodic features Phonemes by manner: 'b' vs. 'm' vs. 'h'.
Duration Imitate a variety of phonemes (b, m, d, t, h, sh, s, f, th,
Awareness of changes in intonation etc.)
Long vs. short sounds (speech & environmental) Words varying in number of syllables: Child identifies
Various combinations of duration spoken words from a small to large set of objects or
Self-monitoring of changes in duration in conversation pictures based on syllable length (ball, apple, dinosaur,
Rate rhinoceros, hippopotamus).
Awareness of changes in rate. One-syllable words varying in vowel and consonant

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Fast & slow sounds in a closed-set task (speech and/or
environmental).
Phrases spoken at fast, slow or medium rates.
Recognition of sentences spoken at fast, slow, or
mediumrates in a closed-set task.
Self-monitoring of changes in rate in conversation.
Frequency
Awareness of changes in pitch.
High and low pitch in a closed-set task.
High, low, and moderate pitches.
Recognition of rising pitch and falling pitch.
Recognition of rising pitch, falling pitch, and monotone in
a closed-set task.
Self-monitoring of pitch in conversation.
Intensity
Awareness of changes in intensity
High (loud) and low (quiet) intensity.
Recognition of high, moderate (conversational) and low
intensity.
Self-monitoring of intensity in conversation.
Stress
Awareness of changes in stress patterns.
Stress patterns in a closed-set.
Recognition of stress patterns in phrases.
Recognition of stress patterns in simple and complex
sentences.
Self-monitoring of stress patterns in conversation.
Recognition of male, female and child voices: Fundamental
frequency of male voice (125 Hz), female voice (250 Hz), and the
child's voice (350 Hz).
Recognition/labeling of the emotional content (angry, sad, happy)
voices.
Response to own name and names of other people.
More Learning to Listen Sounds and word approximations.
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content: Child identifies single-syllable words that are
known (cup, shoe, boat, fish, house, tree, dog, cat).
This is more difficult than the previous task.
Develop memory and expressive production for one
word ...
in phrase containing repetition of sound-word
association, "The airplane goes up, up, up."
in single repetition of Learning to Listen Sound,
e.g. "The cow says moo."
in phrases containing a range of suprasegmental
features with a variety of nouns, verbs, and
adjectives ("Mmm, that's good" vs. "Pick up the
flower" vs. "Brush, brush, brush your hair.")
in simple sentences ..
with varying vowel content and number of
syllables: Can you see the fish? (or apple
...)
where the key word is located at the end
("Where are the elephants?"), beginning
("Dinosaurs are extinct."), or middle ("Can
you put the flowers on the table?") of the
sentence.
Stereotypical messages: Recognition of familiar
expressions and directions, e.g. "Brush your hair,"
"It's hot.")
Words in which the consonants are identical and the
vowels differ, e.g. boat, ball, bus, big, bat, bite, bean.
Words in which the vowels are identical and the
consonants differ in manner and place of articulation
and in voicing.
Words in which the vowels are identical and the
consonants differ only in manner of articulation, e.g.
bat, mat, fat, rat, sat, cat, house, mouse.
Words in which the vowels are identical and the
consonants differ only in voicing, e.g. fan, van, bat,
pat, coat, goat.
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FIRST YEARS - Professional Development through Distance Education http://firstyears.org/c1/u5/pdfmodel.htm

Comprehension The ability to understand the meaning of speech by answering questions, following an instruction, paraphrasing, or participating in a
conversation. The child's response must be qualitatively different than the stimuli presented.

Auditory Memory and Sequencing

Familiar expressions, e.g. "Be careful;" "All gone;" "Wwait a minute;" "All better;" "Peek-a-boo;" "Don't touch."
Follow single directions, e.g. "Give it to me;" "Take your coat off;" "Put your shoes on."
Follow two directions. e.g. "Close the door and sit down over there;" "Put the toast on the table and pour me some coffee."
Sequence two three four critical elements
Two critical elements: on the table; in your pocket; under the pillow; purple hat; big elephant; tall giraffe
Develop two-item memory in phrases and simple sentences:
noun + noun ("Get your hat and mittens.")
noun + verb ("The girl is drinking.")
verb + object ("Wash the car.")
verb + verb ("Get up and dance.")
adjective + noun ("Find the purple ball.")
number + noun ("I want three popsicles.")
Notes:
1
Systematic speech teaching strategies for the development of suprasegmentals and segmentals are outlined by Ling (1976, 1989).

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