HOPE’s certified Teacher of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing serves children who are deaf or hard of hearing, ages birth to three, starting at the time of diagnosis. Through in-home visits, parents are coached how to develop effective communication with their baby. HOPE honors and supports parents’ communication modality choice for their child. Sign language may be modeled during the first months of communication development. Parents who choose listening and spoken language are coached to increase their child’s awareness to sound, to attend to sounds in the environment, and to develop the early communication skills that will lay a foundation for speech and language during the critical brain development time.
Management of the child’s hearing assistive technology is taught to ensure the devices are working properly. Children can’t afford to miss out on developing their listening brain.
