Support John Tracy Clinic's Quest for 250K

In addition to weekly auditory-verbal therapy sessions, we also participated in John Tracy Clinic's birth-to-five distance learning program for several years. This free program provides very detailed and very practical instructions each month on how to promote oral language in your hard-of-hearing child. In return, we submitted an update on Hadley's hearing health and speech progress, answering specific questions that corresponded to the monthly lessons and recommendations. A JTC professional responded by email, following up on any of our questions and providing individualized suggestions based on the information we shared. While it's been years since we participated in the program, I still use many of their worksheets to explain hearing loss to Hadley's teachers each year.

In addition to the online program that helps families all over the world, JTC provides audiology, early intervention and academic services to families living in Southern California. They are currently in the running to win $250,000 through the Pepsi Refresh Project to further fund their preschool program. Please take a moment to vote for them each day during the month of December.

Understanding the Hearing Loss, Part 2

After I posted the last entry on our ongoing understanding of what it's like to live with a hearing loss, Hadley read it. After quibbling over some of the details, she simply said, "Some kids think I'm weird because I wear hearing aids." Being slightly addicted to reading parenting books, I knew to wait and hear her out. Her complaint? That in her school, she is the only kid of three hard of hearing students who wears hearing aids (the other two children hear with cochlear implants). As far as she is concerned, "normal" for her school is being a cochlear implant user. We talked it out and she went to bed feeling like she didn't need to wish for a greater level of hearing loss that would qualify her as a CI candidate.

I can appreciate her feeling of being alone in a world of cochlear implant users. When we first investigated therapy options, I met all these families with kids who used CIs. In two programs, Hadley would have been the only hearing aid user (although we ultimately chose the Auditory Verbal Communication Center for other reasons, a nice bonus was the mix of kids with hearing aids and CIs). Over the years, the majority of the families that I have met and most connected with are those who live in the CI world. Where are all the hearing aid users??!

Rarely does timing occur as perfectly as this. Yesterday, I picked Hadley up from her morning summer activity and she was beaming over making a new friend. As the details emerged, I found out that a new girl had attended the class and Hadley saw-- TA DA!!-- her hearing aids. I couldn't have planned it out better even if I had tried.