Feelings of excitement of the new school year are here, but covering the excitement is a blanket of nerves. 

I am sure most parents are celebrating the added hours of freedom that comes with their children going back to school.  But for Ayden, my son with hearing loss, my heart sinks as my anxiety gets the best of me. 

I feel it there – the joy of a few hours a day of a little less noise and a few more accomplished goals, but as a mother of children with special needs, the beginning of the school year has an added weight.

“What caused the hearing loss?” The one question that continued to circle around us when we first found out our son is hard of hearing. 

We were shocked. Ayden was the first child to have hearing loss in our family. Nobody we knew was deaf or hard-of-hearing. My pregnancy was healthy and normal. My delivery was great. Ayden was full term and was a healthy growing baby boy. How could this happen? 

And how could we answer this question?

What caused the hearing loss?

One mom’s passion for braiding her daughter’s hair is turning into a movement that is breaking down stigmas around hearing loss.

Beth Belshaw, owner of SweetHearts Hair Design, said it wasn’t a conscious decision to encourage people to show off their hearing aids, but rather a natural progression of doing her daughter’s hair, which often exposes her little ears and sweet, pink hearing aids for the world to see.

“In a very low-key way, without even really trying, I think we are raising awareness of being deaf and what it entails,” she says.

My family loves the summertime and having Roger wireless microphone products to connect with hearing aids makes our summer experiences so much more memorable. 

Summer break is here and my children could not be more excited. Their long, hot days are filled with endless amounts of free play, creativity, and imaginative games. In just the past month, we have had swim lessons, Vacation Bible School, reading programs at the library, traveled to the NASA Space Station in Houston, and explored the mountains of North Carolina.

In each of these moments, my children are learning with hands-on experiences, expanding their vocabulary, and using their body in incredible ways.

Catherine Parr, 2017 Valedictorian of Haldane High School, gives an inspiring speech about how small acts of kindness and support from her classmates, faculty and family, led to achieving great success with hearing loss.

Catherine has a hearing loss due to recurring cholesteatoma. Her hearing loss has fluctuated dramatically through the years from mild/moderate to moderate/severe. It can differ frequently from ear to ear and from day to day.

Emily Mikoski, mother of Max, author of Max and His Hearing Aids, wrote a children’s book based off of her son’s experiences to provide a resource for families who are in the midst of their child’s hearing journey.

Emily didn’t intend on writing a children’s book about hearing aids. Her focus was on settling into a routine of ENT, audiology, speech therapy and family service facilitator appointments. A routine that many parents of hard of hearing children are familiar with.

“The journey started just on day two of life,” says Melissa Hyder.”Both of my children did not pass the newborn hearing screening test that was performed at the hospital.”

Melissa, a mother of three, said she and her husband know people with hearing loss due to old age, but before her children were born they never knew a deaf child.

“I fought a lot of shame and guilt,” she says. “I wanted to protect my children, to take their pain away. Often I prayed a line from Mumford and Sons, ‘Keep the earth below my feet.’ I found myself at times lost in the shame and missing the joy that was right in front of me.”

When your child is first diagnosed with hearing loss, some of the first thoughts are often about their educational development. Will your deaf child be able to speak? What about read? Will they be able to keep up with their peers in the classroom? 

Luckily, there are rights for deaf children to ensure they have full access to quality education. However, not all school districts are fully equipped and knowledgeable about the best ways to handle children with hearing loss and other special needs.

That’s where parents come in. Parents can advocate for their child’s needs in the classroom to ensure their hearing loss doesn’t stand in the way of their development.

Here are a few important steps to take to ensure your deaf child is properly supported in the classroom:

So you found out your child has severe hearing loss.

Maybe you discovered it during a newborn hearing screening, or maybe they were already a few months old and not responding to your voice.  Your child might already have hearing aids, or you might be discussing with an audiologist about getting your child fit with a cochlear implant. 

You and your child may just be embarking on their hearing journey, and it may seem overwhelming. Especially because it could take months or even years before your child can be considered and then fit with a cochlear implant. But there are still a lot of things you can do to prepare them for being implanted, and help develop their communication skills long before activation day.