Apologies: The Enemy of Perfect

I have been off of the radar for a while. My hectic work schedule came at the same time as a parenting slump. Have you had one of those? I’ve had plenty of times when I felt like the kids were challenging my parenting skills. But recently, I had a real parenting slump. It was [...]

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Getting Kids with Hearing Loss Ready for the First Day of School

The first day of school is both exciting and stressful for many kids. There is so much anticipation and anxiety and everyone wants the first day to go well. Here are a few tips to make sure that the first day goes smoothly: Put brand new batteries in cochlear implants or hearing aids. Nobody needs [...]

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Celebrate the Successes!

As the school year comes to an end, I find myself filled with emotion: stress about the last book report when the book is lost, anxiety about the letter from the library about HOW MANY books are lost, relief that the children (and their parents) got through it, excitement about the beach and summer vacations, [...]

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Encouraging Friendships for Kids with Hearing Loss

Some kids seem to make friends with ease. They always seem to have someone to play with, and they have no trouble navigating the social world of their classroom or neighborhood. Other kids need more support and may need parents to play a more active role in their effort to make friends. All of the [...]

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All preschool programs are not created equal

Susan Nittrouer and Lisa Burton set out to study the speech perception and language processing of children the hearing loss. The collected a group of 8-to-10 year old children with hearing loss who were all in mainstream elementary schools and had always used oral language. When they compared the outcomes to a comparison group of [...]

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No child can afford to have fluid in the ears

Half of the children in special education preschools in Israel failed the hearing screening! The audience was shocked and more than a little confused. The study was conducted by the Audiology Department of the Ministry of Education and it sounded like it was done properly. Experienced professionals went into dozens of special education preschool classrooms [...]

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Children with Hearing Loss and ADHD: Interview with Dr Susan Wiley, Developmental Pediatrician

Dr Wiley, please tell HearingFamilies readers a bit about yourself and your background. I am a developmental pediatrician in Cincinnati Ohio, USA.  I have been in practice in developmental pediatrics since 2001. I became interested in children who are deaf/hard of hearing as my hearing aunt and uncle taught at a residential school for the deaf. [...]

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High Expectations and Realistic Situations: A New Motto

There is a very tender, delicate balancing act that parents of children with hearing loss find themselves in. It is really a fundamental issue that lies beneath the surface of so many of the other issues that come up parenting children with hearing loss – so lets address it head on: On the one hand [...]

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How am I supposed to know what is “normal” and when my child needs help?

The parents of a 11-year old boy realized that their son was having so much trouble with the other children at school. He was getting help from an itinerant teacher three times a week. She was making a big difference in his academic life, his grades were good and he was following what was going [...]

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“ I love you so much but you need to pick up your dirty clothes off the floor:” A challenge for 2011

This sentence is probably the parenting message that goes through my mind the most often! I am not sure why my children do not ever seem to pick up their dirty clothes without me nagging and I am not sure why it drives me so absolutely crazy. But they don’t and it does. While preparing [...]

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