A Community of Support

Connecting Families of Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (D/HH) with Individuals who are D/HH.

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Purpose of this guide:

• To share information about the positive aspects of connecting families with deaf and hard of hearing adults and community members.
• To describe several ways systems can provide and facilitate these connections. These approaches can be used in any combination, and they can be used at different points in a family’s experience. Families should be able to choose the combination(s) that suit their situation.

• All families, regardless of degree of hearing loss/level or communication/language of the child, should have the opportunity to interact and learn from D/HH Adults; this may include formal to informal interaction, from high level interactivity to low, etc.

This Guide was developed by the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) Parent to Parent Committee, which is an interdisciplinary, inter-agency/ inter-organizational and diverse parent/ professional group. This committee is open to anyone who is interested – professionals, parents, D/HH adults. For more information contact Terri Patterson, Co-chair for this committee: terri @ handsandvoices.org