A listener is usually a sociable child, who has good language ability and a large vocabulary. He is good at following
directions and loves reading. As a result, a listener will make friends easily and should do well in school. Hence, to develop listener skills, parents essentially have to provide plenty of aural stimulation. The obvious thing to do would be to provide your child with noise-making toys like rattles, bells and musical toys that play tunes at the press of a button. Parents can let the radio play softly in the nursery and play cassettes of nursery rhymes. Parents should talk to their babies, describing their actions, asking them questions, pretending to interpret baby gurgles and sounds as answers as if conducting a
conversation. Parents should sing to their babies and imitate the sounds they make. This will encourage the baby to make more sounds. Parents should talk to their babies identifying everyday sounds like the doorbell, the whirring of the washing machine, the ringing of the
telephone, etc. Babies learn a lot by imitation. Parents should buy their babies a toy telephone and pretend to have a conversation. The babies will soon emulate the give and take of conversation even if it is only childish babble. Parents should be more animated when reading or telling stories to their children. They should change their voices for different characters and act out the story almost as if it were a play.