Celebrating Differences Success and supports for children with hearing loss BY ERIN PAGE. PHOTOS PROVIDED AND BY FOTO ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY AND CAROLINE ELIZA PHOTOGRAPHY.
Lily Hernandez views the fact that she is deaf as special, never something to be ashamed of. And she credits local nonprofit organization Hearts for Hearing for that perspective When Alex Hernandez’s newborn baby failed her hearing screening 15 years ago, he wasn’t overly concerned and neither were doctors. Alex received a pamphlet from Lily’s pediatrician who encouraged the family to visit a specialist. Initially Alex thought it was a situation they could wait out to see how Lily’s hearing developed before considering next steps. Now, he’s incredibly grateful the professionals with Hearts for Hearing, then called Hearing Enrichment Language Program (HELP), encouraged him to seek a solution immediately. “They advised us to get hearing aids so she could get sound right away,” remembers Alex. “There is a short window for kids to make that connection in their brain with language and hearing. She needed to have that stimulation to that part of her brain … without them, we would have lost valuable time.” Morgan Young passed her newborn hearing screening 13 years ago, but her parents realized she was having trouble hearing around age 2 when they called her name and she didn’t respond until they touched her arm, causing her to flinch. Morgan’s mom, Maria, also has hearing loss and immediately scheduled an assessment for her daughter. Within a month, Morgan had hearing aids and was enrolled in Happy Hands Education Center in Tulsa, along with her brother Clay, who had failed his newborn hearing screening, as well as their typically-hearing brother Joseph. At the school for children with hearing loss or communication disorders, the Young kids all learned sign language and received the support they needed to prepare for mainstream school. “When Happy Hands did the first assessment of [Morgan’s] learning capabilities at 2 years old she was like a 5-month-old because she hadn’t been hearing anything,” said dad Michael Young. “They kept working with her, on sign language and learning to speak, and she made so much progress that by 5 years old she was learning at a 6-year-old level.”
LILY HERNANDEZ, CENTER, WITH DAD ALEX, STEPMOM AMY AND SIBLINGS VIOLET, HAZEL AND ETHAN. PHOTO BY CAROLINE ELIZA PHOTOGRAPHY.
CLAY AND MORGAN YOUNG WITH DAD MICHAEL. PHOTO BY FOTO ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY.
52 METROFAMILYMAGAZINE.COM / SEPT-OCT 2021
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker