Raising kids is hard. Add a diagnosis of hearing loss and you might find yourself thinking parenting is not for the faint of heart. My children were born with needs categorized as “special.” They look like typical kids (with the exception of their devices) but they don’t hear like those with natural hearing. Understanding and
The road we travel TOGETHER: Our Family Journey By Rosabel O. Agbayani, MPH “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” -Mother Theresa Sometimes we think that in order to make change we have to make a lot of noise. What I have learned from my experience of raising my
I have attended two Hands & Voices Leadership conferences and my first Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) conference. There is no place on earth that felt like home than those three conferences. Being a parent of Deaf/Hard of hearing child, with strong beliefs and convictions–is a lonely place. Single motherhood is a lonely place,
“Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone but that you’re not really any different from everyone else.”
We are the Albers Family, a homeschooling family of nine with two children who have severe to profound hearing loss. We entered the deaf/hoh world three years ago when we adopted our son, Matthew. He was five years old with severe hearing loss. We were told that he could hear and talk with the help
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be a military spouse? Have you thought about trying to explain the lifestyle to others? How do you describe a life that is so far outside the experience of most others? Which part of this unique lifestyle warrants a mention? Some of us delivered
I am the mom of a beautiful, smart, talented accomplished well educated Deaf/Hard of Hearing daughter named Sara. Eighteen years ago, I sat in a meeting hall at an ASL Deaf retreat where the entertainment one night was a group of Deaf individuals who performed a satirical skit about the ineptitude of hearing parents of Deaf
When my first child was born, I wasn’t prepared for the experience of my heart being wrenched out during the moments of learning to “let go.” The first time my husband and I went out for dinner and left the baby with grandparents, I was excited for about twenty minutes. Then I started wondering,
As Board President of Hands & Voices Headquarters, I was honored to represent H & V through a Hear the World Foundation Grant, by joining U.S. educators and audiologists who have the common goal of sharing strategies on how to foster language development in children who are deaf and hard of hearing. Dr. Christine Yoshinaga-Itano,
When a child is diagnosed with a hearing loss, the first thing that tends to happen is the quick referrals for more tests and intervention for the child. This is all good and well, we need to support and help the child as best we can. BUT, what about the parents, what about the family? Are
