parenting

Cue the trumpets: My husband Kevin finally is learning ASL. What made him start learning ASL? It wasn’t my pleading, which eventually became guilt-tripping. It wasn’t the ASL resources I’d left “casually” strewn about. It was good old-fashioned time. Our daughter Raina is hard of hearing. She can hear some things, but not others. Even without hearing

What’s as small as a paperclip, as pricey as a computer, and as easily lost as the remote control? A hearing aid, of course. Finding my baby’s lost hearing aid was an adventure. Losing a child’s hearing aid creates a special kind of panic. Those tiny bits of technology support her language development. Whenever one of my

When my kiddo was diagnosed with hearing loss, the health department sent us a chart of communication options. On one side, it said “visual.” On the other, it said “auditory.” Conspicuously missing from that list? An option that includes both visual and auditory communication.  A bilingual communication plan is a sweet spot between auditory and

When my daughter, Lucy, needed her first pair of hearing aids, I felt totally bewildered. Like 92% of parents, I was a “normal hearing” person, trying to make a decision for someone with hearing loss. How was I supposed to know how to choose the right device to buy? Lucy’s audiologist told us which manufacturer

Visiting any kind of doctor for a child can be daunting, but an audiology appointment is nothing to be nervous about! Whether your child has been seeing an audiologist since birth, or new to hearing loss, there are a few consistent things to expect at a child’s audiology appointment. Your first audiology appointment If you

If you’re raising a hard-of-hearing children in a hearing world, helping them develop skills through speech and listening games can be vital for their speech development. One particular listening game, developed by graduate students and faculty at Utah State University Department of Communicative Disorder and Deaf Education, helped my hard-of-hearing daughter practice the various sounds

I’ll never forget the nonchalant sound of the doctor’s voice who entered into the cold room no parent wants to be invited in, to tell us that our son had severe to profound hearing loss. Receiving this information was not something we expected or could’ve been prepared to hear. Our loved ones didn’t know how