August 2011 – Early Intervention

One of the best things regarding our daughter’s hearing loss is the amount of resources and support that are available, especially here in NYC.  There is a state-run program called Early Intervention (EI) that provides services from birth to 3 years of age to those with hearing loss.  Since Madison’s hearing loss is so severe, she automatically qualifies to receive speech therapy sessions.  Speech therapy for a deaf child??  If Madison is a candidate for a cochlear implant, she will be able to hear… and eventually will be able to speak.  We met with a surgeon to discuss what this would entail, but basically she would not receive the implant until she is 1 years old.  Anyway, back to Early Intervention.  In addition to speech therapy, Early Intervention will provide hearing aids (HAs) for Madison.  Although we were told that the HAs won’t allow her to hear conversation, it will give her access to more sounds than she currently receives… and prepare the brain to process sounds via the cochlear implant.  We were assigned a service coordinator that walked us through the EI process.  Boy, a lot of information was thrown our way...  I guess it’s a good thing that there are so many resources out there but it was and is very overwhelming!