Your Beautiful Child

Rejoice! You're the parent of a newborn or young child, and you have an incredible, wonderful journey ahead. The fact that your child has a hearing loss is only one facet of the journey.

Still, hearing loss is a very important facet and needs to be addressed. Even as a baby, your child is learning and growing all the time. The sooner you find help for your child, the better. Research has shown that, with immediate and proper help, by age 5 children with hearing loss can develop language skills comparable to those of children without hearing loss. Two key factors are involved:

• early identification of the hearing loss, and
  
  
• appropriate early intervention services from qualified providers.

Peter, the baby we just mentioned, is already well on his way to developing the language and other skills he needs to succeed in school and in life. His hearing loss was detected early, the hospital connected his family with nearby early intervention services, and Peter received services immediately. His family learned about hearing loss and about communicating with their newborn. They are exploring all sorts of options for helping Peter to take advantage of the hearing he does have (called residual hearing) and to communicate visually. And Peter—he's wide open to the world and learning, learning, learning all of the time.

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