Pratibha Srinivasan
Pratibha has been serving the cause of children with hearing loss for 40 years — teaching children with hearing loss to listen and talk, advocating for their rights, training therapists and teachers, and assisting school systems serve their children better. Pratibha is a Doctor of Audiology, Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist, and Teacher of the Deaf. As a consultant, she has conducted seminars, workshops, and training programs, both within the U.S. and internationally. Pratibha has made numerous presentations at scientific and professional conferences. She is the author of Practical Aural Habilitation (Charles C Thomas, 1996).
She founded Chattering Children, a nonprofit auditory-verbal center and auditory-oral school in Virginia, in 1999 and stepped down as its Executive Director in 2008 to become a full-time, independent consultant.
Pratibha has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing (AG Bell) and the Chairperson of the Certification Council of the Auditory-Verbal International (now part of AG Bell Academy of Listening and Spoken Language).
For Parents
Pratibha continues to see families of children with hearing loss at her Smart Ears office in Alexandria, VA. She works with the family, the audiologist, educators and/or early intervention professionals to ensure a consistent, efficient, and effective LSL (Listening and Spoken Language) program. The goal is to help the child grow up to be an independent, confident communicator in mainstream, listening and talking, society.
Pratibha founded the nonprofit Equal Voices for Deaf Children (EVDC) in 2009 to help families of children with hearing loss around the world who do not have ready access to qualified professionals to work with their child.
Elsewhere on this website, Pratibha provides, in a series of free videos, guidance to parents of children with hearing loss who are just starting out. They aim to provide families relevant information and, hopefully, inspiration to take the first steps on this journey confidently.
Pratibha’s Advice to Parents Starting Out on the Journey
For Professionals
From 2009 to 2020, Pratibha offered full-day and half-day online workshops on Teaching Children with Hearing Loss to Listen and Talk. The series included over a dozen workshops, from basic to advanced, covering nearly every aspect of Listening and Spoken Language therapy. Over 2500 therapists and educators took these workshops, many of them taking the entire series. The workshops are not currently being offered.
Pratibha has formally mentored and continues to mentor professionals in this field. The primary goal of her mentoring program is for the mentees to achieve excellence as LSL (Listening and Spoken Language) Specialists. The program also prepares them to take the exam for the LSL Cert.AVT and LSL Cert.AVEd certification, and provides a majority of the CE hours required for the candidacy.
Contact Pratibha for more information (Link at bottom of page)
For Institutions
Pratibha has worked with Public School Systems, Schools for the Deaf, and Early Intervention Programs in the U.S. as well as internationally, helping them to start a new LSL (Listening and Spoken Language) program from the ground up or to improve the effectiveness of their existing program. The services included planning, curriculum development, staff training, and the setting up of effective systems and procedures.
Pratibha's program development consulting services are customized to the specific needs of the institution, and will include some or all of the following process components:
* Assessment of the Current Program
* Assessment of needs and survey of existing resources
* Development of goals and strategies to achieve them
* Development of a blueprint for instruction, staffing, and training
* Training and mentoring of staff as needed
* Development of systems and procedures for quality control
* Development of tools to assess program outcomes
Contact Pratibha for more information (Link at bottom of page)