services for my deaf child!

[Jacobmillie]

Hi all,
my son has recently been identified as being deaf, through the newborn hearing screening test. I was wondering if there were parents in a similar situation who could tell me what information was given to you and the services and medical interventions that were offered.

It is still early days and am waiting for the teaher of the deaf to see us!

As you can imagine it is all so new and daunting to us and feel a little lost at the decisions that we are faced with.

When reading on the subjest, there is so much conflicting views on what communication interventions are best and it would be interested to see what other parents thought and have experienced.

Many thanks. xx

Not exactly the same as you but couldn't read and run.

My daughter is 2 and has ds & glue ear (mild/moderate hearing loss), she wears hearing aids. The audiologist recommended contacting the www.ndcs.org.uk National Deaf Children's Society.

Hope this helps and someone who knows more comes along soon.

Jacobmillie - what type of hearing loss did they your baby had? Sensorineural or Conductive? Did they also give you the hearing loss figures. My two have a conductive loss of 50-60dB. Aided thresholds are 20-25db. Conversation levels are roughly about 25dB. 0dB is perfect hearing. It's important that you get him aided ASAP as they learn conversation cues from birth. If they're reluctant to fit him with BTE aids (behind the ear), ask them for a BAHA (bone anchored hearing aid) on a soft band to get conductive sound to him.
Help with speech is lots of animated facial expressions when you talk to him, modelling back sounds to him when he starts to make them, lots of bubble blowing to encourage him to track you and to get him to follow mouth shaping.
Makaton or Signalong is a good place to start to help him with basic communication so that he picks up the sign and the word at the same time. The LA Area Senco should be able to give you info on training courses for Makaton or Signalong depending on what they use in your area. The Audiology dept should also be able to give you contact info for the local Deaf Children's Group in your area.

Hope this helps! You should probably repost this on the SN children's forum.

Hi,
My daughter was also picked up in the newborn screening as being deaf, although she is five now. I can still remember how difficult those days were, trying to come to terms with it all. You should get allocated a Teacher of the Deaf and a Speech and Language Therapist pretty quickly after diagnosis. Have they determined what level of deafness your daughter has?
My daughter is profoundly deaf and has bilateral cochlear implants that she hears with. We did not go down the signing route as I really wanted her to learn to listen well and speak with her equipment (although we may pursue this together later on). We used a centre in Oxfordshire called AVUK (www.avuk.org) which I really can't recommend enough, they are fabulous. They use an approach called Auditory Verbal Therapy, where the emphasis is on learning to be an excellent listener and therefore not relying on gestures or lip reading. Added in to this they give you as a parent a tremendous amount of support and direction as well and they have such high expectations for your child. I would really encourage you to give them a call and look on their website where there are videos of some of the children.
Please feel free to get in tuch if you want to ask any questions or chat.
xx