Hearing and Kids

I recently spoke at a conference sponsored by Phonak in Stockholm. It was a wonderful time to meet people. Fortunately, they speak English because I do not speak Swedish. I did learn a lot in spite of my limited language skills. One of the participants contacted me after the conference to ask me about using remote microphones in preschool. The

When I started working in this field (in the age of the dinosaurs) there were no services in schools for children with hearing loss. Families had to find services for children outside of school. As my career progressed things improved and services started to be available in the schools. Now things are turning around and it is again difficult to

Today’s blog is written by  Lydia Gregoret. She is an audiologist, scientist, teacher, and parent of two sons, one of whom is deaf and hears with cochlear implants. She began her career in academic research in the field of biochemistry and biophysics studying the “protein folding problem.” When her children were of school age, she focused on raising them and

Nina Kraus and her lab at Northwestern have done wonderful work in looking at auditory based learning disorders. They have reported that impaired auditory processing can have a significant effect of reading development. So, will a program of auditory therapy improve auditory processing and/or reading? Research has demonstrated that even a short three hour training program on phonologic awareness can

I have had some conversations recently with people who expressed concern about when to move to a cochlear implant. Some were parents who were concerned about surgery. Some were parents who felt that the child should make the decision and did not want to make the decision for the child. Some were therapists who felt that if the child could

It is the start of the school year and families should know what they need to watch out for. Hopefully, every child with hearing loss has an IEP  or 504 plan that meets his needs. For children who have a disability but do not need a lot of services a 504 plan is sufficient but, I hear too often from

We all know that the younger children are the easier it is to increase brain development. We also have known that the earlier children receive cochlear implants (or hearing aids) the better their language. Well, it will be no surprise that we know have data that confirms this. A study from the Children’s Hospital of Chicago has confirmed that infants

I had the honor of presenting several presentations at the first AGBell International Conference in Madrid. Carol Flexer and I were asked to present the final Keynote (What Jane and Carol Know). It was a wonderful honor and our colleagues in the audience were terrific. We talked about how critical audition is to build the auditory brain. And how we

Today’s blog is written by Jessica Chaikof. Jessica  was born profoundly deaf and received her first cochlear implant in May of 1996 at fifteen months. At the time, she was the youngest child in the country to receive a cochlear implant. In May of 2004, Jessica went bilateral and was diagnosed with Usher syndrome type 1F about two years later.

I had the honor a few weeks ago of attending an international conference in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia as a representative of the Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss. I have had the honor of working with the Global Foundation several times in Vietnam but this was the first time I have gone with them to Mongolia. The government of Mongolia