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I am writing in response to David Luterman’s editorial on "Technology and Childhood Deafness." As an SLP and a mother of a child with a hearing loss, I wholeheartedly disagree with delaying newborn hearing screening. Diagnosing a hearing loss is a process—in our case it took five weeks (with me pushing). Our daughter was screened in the hospital and again when she was 10 days old, but even with my experience with children with a hearing loss, I couldn’t tell whether she could hear us. At five weeks she was diagnosed with a severe-to-profound hearing loss. I am grateful that newborn hearing screening allowed us to know long before we would have ever suspected that we needed to adapt our communication so that our child could access her world.
Did I grieve? Yes. I was frustrated that it took five weeks to get a diagnosis. But because we knew early, we could give our child access to language from the start, through sign language and hearing aids. Hearing loss is a part of who my daughter is. She is also a happy, confident child because she can access her world.
I agree with Luterman that many professionals are not good at supporting parents emotionally during this crucial time period and often offer up technology as a fix. Instead of changing the timing of newborn hearing screenings let us better train those who deliver the news and build a better support system for families of children with hearing loss.
Elyse Graves
Beavercreek, Ohio
egraves@woh.rr.com
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