Auditory Memory Strategies and Activities   

Contributed by Marisa Lapish (author of Straight Talks Fall 1994)

1. Make sure you have eye contact with your child and his attention is totally on you while doing all tasks. Start out in a non-distracting one-on-one time with him.

2. Begin all instructions with "LISTEN....say ________.

Have your child repeat what you asked him to. If he was incorrect, try the memory task with one less item and have him repeat it. Build up to greater complexity as he reaches 90% success rates at each task. Sentence repetition tasks work well too. Begin a story sentence, then let your child add a word, then you add a word.. etc. Then have the child say the entire sentence of 4-5 words.

3. Teach your child to "chunk" together pieces of information in groups of 3 to begin with:

a.) Misc. number memory ---1 8 7 5 4 6 becomes

1 8 7

5 4 6 (this way he can remember 6 items

in two groups of 3)

b.) Word imitation: ball, flower, wallet, pickle

chair, paper becomes:

ball , flower, wallet

pickle, chair, paper.

c.) Sentence imitation: My mom likes lettuce and tomatoes in her salad. becomes....

My mom likes

lettuce and tomatoes

in her salad.

4. As your child groups in 3's successfully, add more units to the "chunks" ie. 4 items in a chunk.

5. When producing word series in a categorization task, ie, Name FOODS, teach him to group according to sub-categories (first fruits, then vegetables, meats etc.)

6. Have your child follow 3, and then 4 and then 5 step commands correctly.

7. Encourage your child to use the verbal rehearsal strategy. Right after you have given him an instruction, have him repeat the instruction aloud and then follow the instructions you gave. Eventually have him rehearse the instructions silently.

8. Writing Road to Reading will be good for developing auditory memory and listening skills, plus it will help the child to read effectively. Although an auditory learning environment will be most difficult for a child with these problems, direct training into this area of weakness would be best to develop this skill rather than merely relying on the visual to compensate for the auditory problems.

9. Scripture memory can be used to increase auditory memory as well at he sentence level. (first 4 word scriptures---or in chunks at a time---then more.)

10. Review the days activities with your child before bed. encourage appropriate sequencing of the days events. Record together in a journal. You may also review individual steps of each activity.