Indianapolis

Early Intervention

Early intervention services are an extremely important part of our programming. By working with children from a very young age, we are better able to minimize the gap between the deaf/hard-of-hearing child and his or her hearing peers. In many cases, this accelerates their ability to be successfully mainstreamed into their community schools, which often begins as early as preschool.
Our early intervention services include:

• Individualized speech and developmental therapy delivered in the home and at our northside Indianapolis location
• Family education and group support
• Consultation and advocacy

Specially trained speech-language pathologists and teachers of the deaf provide individual sessions for these children and their families an average of two times per week. Some of these sessions take place in the family's home. In each therapy session, the speech pathologist works with the child and teaches the parent techniques to be used on a daily basis to reinforce the content of the therapy session and progressively develop the child's skills. This is done through structured play, and parents/caregivers are provided directions for developmental play between appointments.

Parents involved in our early intervention programs are encouraged to attend our monthly parent education meetings. Topics include a wide range of issues related to hearing loss including areas such as discipline, technical resources (hearing aids, cochlear implants, assistive listening devices), education, and family dynamics. Members of our staff as well as other professional experts conduct these informative sessions which are open to all families of children with significant hearing loss. Meetings are held in the evenings and babysitting and pizza are provided to help remove potential barriers to attendance. These sessions also provide families with a forum to interact with others facing the challenges of raising a deaf/hard-of-hearing child and to share their concerns, fears, and successes.

The majority of children with significant hearing loss are born to hearing parents, most of whom have little prior exposure to deafness. In addition to facing the grief of learning of their child's diagnosis, they are confronted with learning about audiograms, hearing aids, cochlear implants and educational and communication options. We are available to help guide and support them through this challenge in a warm, compassionate atmosphere, focusing on the needs of the individual family. Our professional staff also advocates for hearing impaired children in the development of Individualized Family Service Plans and Individual Education Plans, which are required under federal law.