Photo credit: France1978
I moved from Texas to North Carolina, when my daughter was almost 5 months old. It took us about a month to get settled into our new home. After we got settle it was time to begin determining what the next step was to correct my daughter’s hearing loss. Being new to the area, I found that it was difficult to find providers who specialized in advanced hearing loss, especially, since we were living in a small town. The closest specialists who were able to deal with my daughter’s stage of hearing loss were over two or more hours away from our house.
Disclosure: This post is for informational purposes and shouldn’t replace appropriate medical advice from a doctor or audiologist regarding your child’s hearing. The information that I provided was based upon my own experience with my daughter’s hearing loss and the process that I went through.
Before we moved to NC, my daughter began receiving services from Early Childhood Intervention. This is a free program that is available for children who have special needs. The goal of the program is to help assist parents with locating services and they even provide some services as well. After moving, my daughter picked up where the Early Intervention specialist left off. They began teaching my daughter sign language using play therapy. It is important that your child gets some type of language support as quickly as possible if they have a hearing loss. Your child needs to be able to communicate, whether it be using sign language, speech, or a combination of both.
I took her to see her new pediatrician so that I could get help finding the right providers so that I could pursue the next step. The pediatricians office sent her to see a local ear, nose, and throat doctor (ENT) for an evaluation. The ENT suggested that we attempt to put hearing aids on my daughter. As a mom, I was kinda annoyed with this step but for medical documentation purposes it was a necessary step. It helped doctors to determine if she was eligible for a cochlear implant. So they fitted my daughter with hearing aids, similar to the one in the photo.
