Why don’t you want to go to the Halloween/Christmas/Hannuka/any other holiday/birthday/anniversary/any other kind of party – everyone else is going!?

Being a guest at a party is not supposed to be too stressful. Yes, some parties are obligations that you might not feel so enthusiastic about. Yes, you need to get dressed appropriately, you might need to bring a gift, and you need to arrive on time but not too early, but attending a party [...]

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Imagine Speaking Greek: Why I Don’t Think Sign Language Helps Most Children with Hearing Loss

Imagine: you and your spouse have given birth to the most beautiful baby girl. She is perfect, with 10 tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes and a little dimple on her chin – just like her dad. Everything went smoothly and as you prepare to leave the hospital and take your baby home, there is [...]

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Fighting Burn-Out: What to do when your work is really never done?

Parents in two different states of mind walk into the speech therapy office. There is the first group, most of the parents, most of the time – they walk in with a smile on their face, shoulders held back and head up high. They look happy to be standing next to their wonderful child and [...]

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Understanding Your Teenager

Teri and Bob had been very involved in their daughter’s education and her life from the start. When they found out that their beautiful baby girl Emily (she is their second child) was deaf, it shook up their whole world. Teri took a leave of absence from her job in order to give Emily all [...]

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Helping kids have balanced lives: Many ways to be successful

School never came easily for Zach. He was only 4 when the teachers started calling Zach’s parents to discuss his difficulty staying tuned in to the activity at circle time. He started having problems with reading in first grade and since then schoolwork has always been challenging for him. Zach’s parents realized that school would [...]

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The First Day of School Without Fear

Gina was starting Pre-K at the local elementary school in a week and suddenly started crying for no obvious reason. When her parents reminded her about her new “promotion” to the school for big kids, after 2 years in a small home day-care, she said that she didn’t want to go. She HAD been so [...]

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Helping TOO much isn’t really helpful

Robbie was almost 15 years old and was much bigger than his mother. She sat and read the paper while Robbie took part in a research program on children with cochlear implants. Robbie was the oldest child to participate – it was hard to call him a child, since he looked and acted so very [...]

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Starting Middle School or High School: Tips for Smooth Transitions

I realized it was a brave new world when my son, who is entering high school this September, told me that he’d like to put together a power point presentation for his new classmates to educate them about hearing loss! After 14 years, he has put me out of business! It used to be me, [...]

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Back to School Already?! Preparing for Success at School in the Summertime

For many children with hearing loss, academic and social success in school is a goal that does not come easily. Often, parents, teachers, and speech therapists have to work very hard to help the child with hearing loss do well in school. There is a lot of pressure on teachers in the last week of [...]

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Supporting Siblings of Children with Hearing Loss

Sibling relationships are both incredibly enriching and important connections for children (and adults!) and can cause complicated, very emotionally-draining conflicts in families. They are so complex and individual that it is very hard to talk about them in general terms. But I will try to talk about them in general terms because parents are searching [...]

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