Make Communication the Focus for Parents of Children Newly Identified With Hearing Loss

“The most important role for the family of an infant who is deaf or hard of hearing is to love, nurture and communicate with the infant.” –Joint Committee on Infant Hearing Parents of children newly identified with hearing loss—especially infants identified at birth—must deal with the diagnosis, follow-up care and amplification recommendations. Eventually, they realize they need to use an alternate method of communication with their child. They probably turn first to their pediatric audiologist. As the family goes through the process of additional tests, confirming hearing levels and picking out hearing aid(s) or cochlear implant(s), the audiologist also usually provides counseling on communication options, as covered in this month’s ASHA Leader magazine cover story, “Refocusing on Choices.” I’m not going to go in-depth about the communication options, but my experiences as an educational audiologist and late-deafened adult with bilateral cochlear implants influence my view on communication choices. Most of us probably lean one way or another, but we need to admit any biases to ourselves and understand how they affect our presentation of information to parents. How to communicate with and educate a child with hearing loss has been a controversial topic since … forever, it seems. Remember the Milan Conference of 1880? Professionals often refer to this dilemma in terms of a pendulum, swinging back and forth between visual/manual and auditory/spok...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Tags: Audiology Speech-Language Pathology Hearing Assistive Technology hearing loss Language Disorders Source Type: blogs