Auditory-Verbal Education for Aria

From Arias mother Lauren:

It's adorable when the biggest problem your child has is that they want to start kindergarten but can't because of where their birthday lands and there is nothing that I love more than my daughter's desire to go to school and learn.

Aria is a smart, creative, energetic, sweet, playful 5 year old. She is so excited that she gets to start Kindergarten in the fall, asks me every day how long she has to wait.

At 3 months old Aria was diagnosed with a severe to profound bilateral hearing loss, at the time this broke our hearts that she could not hear music, the sound of splashing water or even the sounds of our voice. As expecting parents I know we all think about how much it will make us feel the first time our child lights up at the sound of our voices or soothing them to sleep with our favorite lullaby. At the same time we are extremely grateful that she was and still is healthy in every other way.

We had appointments after appointments full of tests to determine the best course of action and came to the conclusion that cochlear implants would give Aria more in life. Three days before her first birthday she had her first surgery on her right ear and after a month of recovery we turned on her device and she was able to hear us for the first time. I have to say that the thought of what would happen was much nicer than reality, she was scared and wouldn't stop crying and screaming. Three months later she had her second surgery for her left ear and when it was finally turned on her reaction was better but there was still crying.

That was 4 years ago and she is doing so well for the time she missed hearing everything. She has ongoing audiology appointments for the upkeep of her devices which I'm sure she finds boring and she will continue to have these appointments for the rest of her life. One of the saddest days for me was the day she realized she was different, she came up to me and started feeling my ears and asked me where my cochlear devices were. I am so proud of her progress and I'm ashamed that at times when she is around other children it sometimes saddens me when she experiences difficulty in communicating or understanding, I see it in her face at that moment she feels vulnerable because she knowns all the other kids understand what is being said or the other kids tell her that they don't know what she is trying to say. I hate that look on her face because there is no immediate fix, the only thing I can do is reassure her and help her practice her words.

We found a private elementary school that specializes in deaf and hard of hearing kids that offer her everything she needs to succeed. They have built in speech therapy and an onsite audiologist to offer assistance with any of the kids devices as well as teachers that specialize in special needs children so they can help the kids to the best of their ability. They have awarded Aria with some internal financial Aid and we appreciate it so much. The catch is that we still need to provide the rest of the tuition. The day that we took a tour of her school, she came up to me and told me with so much enthusiasm that all of the kids were like her.

We are doing our best to give her all the help she needs and it is difficult at times because of finances not being available. Nothing makes me feel like I'm not succeeding as a parent when I feel like I can't provide the best help for my child and she really does need the help and more importantly we need help so we can help her.

We don't expect anything from anyone but if anyone would like to contribute to Aria's education we would be extremely grateful and I'm sure she will be too once she can truly understand what a wonderful thing is it when someone offers you help.