Ella Marie’s First Visit to Memphis Oral School for the Deaf – Sound Beginnings Program

On August 13 (Ella Marie was 3 months and two weeks old), Ella Marie, my mother-in-law, and I went to attend our first parent program meeting at the Memphis Oral School for the Deaf. Again, another little blessing that God has given us…..one of the best oral schools is located in the same town that I have family in. Anytime that I need to spend the night out of town I have somewhere I can stay. This program “Sound Beginnings” is dedicated to helping our child get off to a great start in language development. Part of the time is spent educating the family on hearing loss information and part of the time is devoted to teaching us activities that we can do at home with Ella Marie. When I am explaining what I have learned to my family and friends I have told them that these activities are ones that we can do and most parents do with any child. The difference is that a hearing impaired child must have these activities. Also, it is good to know the background of why we are doing these activities with Ella Marie. Most parents do a lot of these activities because “it just comes naturally.” It is important for me to understand exactly what skills these activities are enhancing. Below is a list of activities that we learned at our first meeting.
1. Handouts were given to us about how the ear works. We discussed how Ella Marie’s hearing loss is considered severe to profound. It is also considered a sensorineural hearing loss which means that this loss is in the inner ear. A common question I have gotten from people is “Won’t Ella Marie grow out of this?” No she was born with a hearing loss. Hearing is formed in the first three months in the womb.
2. We received a wonderful resource guide called My Baby & Me: A Book about Teaching Your Child to Talk by Betsy Moog Brooks. This book includes information on listening and talking, how the ear works, major milestones for children, and ways to maximize language development.





3. We discussed ways to keep Ella Marie’s hearing aids on. Typically children do not like to wear their hearing aids. As a parent you have to get used to the feedback from the hearing aids which is hard at first. Anytime you pull your child to you to hug or cuddle, you will hear a loud squealing noise. It is so easy to want to just leave the hearing aids off for the time being, but if Ella Marie is able to hear anything with the aids in, we want her to have that opportunity (even though we say that she is deaf this does not mean that she cannot hear anything. Ex. She may hear a siren like a soft noise. The Hannah Anderson catalog sells “pilot caps” for children. These are known to help keep hearing aids on. We have used toupee tape to keep her aids on. This was also suggested to us by Nathalie at Memphis Oral School for the Deaf. We ordered it from http://www.toupeetape.com/ . It really helps. Also it is important to know that hearing aid batteries are very toxic. It is very important that we keep them away from her and the dog. We also keep extra batteries in my purse or her diaper bag since they go out every 7-10 days. One idea that was suggested to us was to place a sticker in your calendar on the date that you replaced the battery so you can see how often you are changing the batteries. Also we use cream on her hearing aids called otofirm to help get a good seal in her ear. At night, you must take the batteries out of the aids and store the hearing aid part in a separate round box. One frustrating part about hearing aids is that infants ears grow so fast that we are constantly having to get her ear molds re-made. Each time we have an ear mold re-made it is $50. It seems like as soon as we get it back from the lab 2 weeks later she has already outgrown the mold.

4. Narrate everything you do – For any child with hearing loss the biggest mistake that you could make is to think that they can’t hear you so there is no reason to talk to them. Actually it is the exact opposite….you should talk more. There is a program called Talk Around The Clock and this is exactly what we are supposed to do with Ella Marie. All of her waking hours she is stimulated with someone talking to her. We narrate everything we hear, ex. When the doorbell rings we take her to the doorbell and tell her that it was a doorbell. We talk to her about the here and now. Everything we are doing she is learning about. Even a diaper change is now “therapy time”. One interesting statistic is that a hearing baby must hear a word 1000 times to know it. A hearing impaired baby needs to hear a word 3000 times before he or she knows it.

5. Activities where we focused on language development for this week: Diaper changing and getting up in the morning. Even when I am changing Ella Marie’s diaper it is a mini speech therapy session. We talk about every step of the diaper changing process. For ex. “Ella Marie, I am getting out a diaper from the drawer. We are going to take your dirty diaper off. Are you ready to put on a clean diaper? Etc” Ella Marie loves to vocalize during this time as well. This is wonderful for her. It is important to show that you are listening intently to what she has to say. When she vocalizes or talks back we are supposed to point to our ear and say “I heard you Ella Marie” and then continue with what we were going to say. During diaper changing time it is also important to imitate the same sounds she makes. She will know that you are engaging in her conversation.

When she wakes up in the morning, the first thing we do is put on her hearing aids. If we don’t put them on the first thing she will learn that it is not important and will try even harder to not keep them on. Again we talk about putting on her hearing aids and exactly what we are doing in the morning. For example, we discuss opening the blinds and changing from our pajamas into our clothes for the day.

Although these activities are super easy and every parent does these activities, you would be surprised how preoccupied we get when we are doing these activities. For example, I no longer can be talking on the phone while I am changing her diaper because I need to be talking to her. Ryan and I both are mindful of how we spend her awake time. We have been excited to see how vocal she is at this time.