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• The initial news…”Your child is deaf” or “Your child is hard of hearing”
• Trust your instincts
• Early Intervention
• Parent Power
  
  
  
  
  

The initial news…”Your child is deaf” or “Your child is hard of hearing”

These days most states mandate by law that all newborn babies have to have a hearing test before they go home from the hospital.  We are now meeting families with one and two month olds for testing which is a very difficult time in some respects because newborn babies don’t really do a lot.  You haven’t really had the chance to experience your baby.  We are very often required to do that diagnostic test and determine that yes, indeed, a hearing loss is present.  It is often very difficult to break that news. Even after having done it for 20 years, I still get butterflies in my stomach because each baby is so different, each family is so different and everyone’s experience and background is different.

Charlotte Mullen, M.A., Audiologist

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Trust your instincts

Some of the stressors on a family when a child is first diagnosed with a hearing loss are all the information that is presented, new professionals to meet with potentially differing opinions, and decisions to be made that seem to affect the whole course of a child’s life. This can be particularly difficult since most of the information is completely new. The parents are trying to make good decisions, but in an area entirely out of their “comfort zone”. Gradually though, most parents tell us that they find the people they trust and create connections that resonate with their values and their goals for their child. They may visit a program where they feel comfortable and know that their child will grow and be happy. At that point, life feels more normal and they again feel like competent parents. The important point is that even in a new area, parents just need to know that their parental intuition will, as always, be an important asset.

Betsy Kammerer, Ph.D., Psychologist

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Early Intervention

The thing that I say that makes me sound like a broken record is that the more involved the parents are in the process of habilitation after getting a new device or after a diagnosis of hearing loss, the better off the child is.  If it is a baby and the parents are involved in the early intervention services that are done in their home or the early intervention center, it will be much more effective.  If it is an adolescent who just got a cochlear implant and the parents are nicely involved, not overly involved, it will be much more effective when the parents can be involved in the child’s language skill acquisition. 

Stacey Culver, M.S., Speech-Language Clinician

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Parent power

After working in Audiology for years it is impossible not to be struck by certain universal truths, the first of which is that parents love their children.  That love drives them to do things to help their children that they never thought they could do.  Somehow parents find, deep within themselves, the strength to take that first baby step, then the next step, and the next, and pretty soon they have moved mountains to do what hey need to do so that their child can learn to communicate.  Then they start serving as mentors and supporters to other parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing, while they still want guidance themselves.  For a parent simply to listen or to share their story with another parent is a form of support.  Parents help each other in concrete ways as well, sharing information about resources, tricks for finding bike helmets that fit with hearing aids, how to  position the car seat so that your child can see your face, what toys are fun for children who don’t hear well, etc.  Sometimes the parent-to-parent “matches” that a professional sets up aren’t as strong as the ones that happen accidentally at the supermarket or in the park.

Marilyn Neault, PhD, CCC-A, Audiologist 

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