Speech Language Pathologist Lindsay Zombek Travels to Kenya to Teach Auditory-Verbal Therapy

Innovations in Ear, Nose & Throat | Spring 2026

In 2025, Lindsay Zombek, CCC-SLP, traveled to Kenya to work with the nonprofit Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss (GFCHL), serving as a mentor to professionals and parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

“Paige Stringer, the founder of GFCHL, has traveled to several countries to work with local governments, hospitals and officials to establish pediatric audiology services,” says Zombek, Supervisor for Speech-Language Pathology at the University Hospitals Ear, Nose & Throat Institute. “My role was to work with participants, teaching topics in auditory-verbal therapy [AVT] and hearing assessment and to provide real-time mentorship during therapy sessions with the children who traveled to participate in the program.”

GFCHL is partnering with the University of Nairobi to help implement the Kenyan government’s 2023 National Ear and Hearing Care Strategy. Goals of the collaboration include strengthening programs in regions that have historically lacked resources for children with hearing loss, facilitating children’s access to hearing tests, amplification through hearing aids or cochlear implants, and speech therapy services.

“I was invited toward the end of a two-year program to work with about 20 participants from throughout Kenya who were specially selected for their ability to work well with children who are deaf or hard of hearing and to pass their training on to other professionals,” Zombek says. “Team members were strategically chosen from throughout the country to enable children to receive therapy closer to home and to ensure that the program would continue once the GFCHL program concludes.”

During an intensive two-week session, Zombek mentored participants in AVT, a highly specialized communication modality, as they worked one-on-one with children and parents. “The participants were absolutely amazing and had such a passion for promoting spoken language,” she says. “Everyone was eager to learn, and the program format enabled them to put the techniques and tips into immediate practice.”

Institute’s International Leadership

Zombek’s mission trip was another example of the UH Ear, Nose & Throat Institute’s leadership in advancing hearing restoration and improving communication for people with congenital or acquired hearing loss. “University Hospitals is very supportive of our participation in research and training opportunities that enable us to share our expertise with the global community,” she says.

In addition to its internationally renowned cochlear implant team, University Hospitals is a preeminent center for aural rehabilitation and is unique in having four providers who hold or are completing their auditory-verbal certification. According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, there are slightly more than 1,000 certified auditory-verbal therapists worldwide.

“AVT is a language modality that uses listening and spoken language to help children reduce reliance on their visual system as they begin to understand speech,” Zombek says. “This is how hearing children learn language, by constantly hearing sounds throughout their environment.”

Fostering Communication and Language Acquisition

Most of the children Zombek worked with had cochlear implants, and audiologists in Kenya are available to program them for adult and pediatric patients. However, unlike in the United States, not all infants receive universal newborn hearing screening.

“Some of the children we saw in Kenya were as old as four before they were diagnosed or received amplification,” Zombek says. “The statistic we commonly use is that for every six months a child goes without amplification, it takes 18 months of therapeutic intervention to catch up in listening and spoken language.”

She explains that if children do not start therapy until age four or older, it is exponentially more challenging because they miss critical neurological windows for language development.

However, the parents in the mentorship program were highly motivated to help their children become proficient communicators. “To be truly successful in spoken communication, children in Kenya need to become fluent in three languages — their local community language, Swahili and English, which is the language used in schools,” Zombek says. “Parents asked excellent questions, and we had many conversations about promoting the learning of multiple languages and helped them develop a broader toolbox of strategies to use at home once the program ended.”

Building a Lasting Legacy

The goal of GFCHL is to establish sustainable programs that promote earlier hearing screening and access to appropriate resources to address hearing loss.

“It was such a wonderful experience to work with GFCHL and be surrounded by such a sense of community,” Zombek says. “The participants saw themselves as ambassadors for auditory-verbal therapy, who truly have the ability to change Kenya.”

For more information about auditory-verbal therapy at University Hospitals, call 216-844-5778.

Contributing Expert:
Lindsay Zombek, CCC-SLP
Supervisor for Speech-Language Pathology
University Hospitals Ear, Nose & Throat Institute