Look How Far We've Come Baby

So over the weekend I had to opportunity to speak to a group of adults with hearing loss.  Initially when I was asked to speak I thought "what in the world am I going to talk about???".  But after some thinking and reminiscing about talks with my grandparents about raising children with hearing loss I came up with a topic.  I called it Aural Habilitation...These Days.  


I started off my talk with  my story about running into a cashier at Target who wore hearing aids.  When I told the cashier I was an SLP she told me how much she hated going to therapy when she was growing up.  Of course I was a little saddened to think...will my patients say that one day???  I try my best every day to be creative with ways to make my therapy seem like play.  Mostly because we know that a child's work is play, but also because I would much rather play grocery store than do a worksheet.

I went on to tell about how parent involvement is the center of my practice and how each session is focused on training the parents of how to work with their children at home.  I showed a video of a typical therapy session with a 2 and 1/2 year old with hearing loss.  I could just see it in their eyes how amazed they were at therapy these days.  A couple of them even raised their hands to tell me about how speech when they were growing up was just imitating the words of their clinicians.  Ummm no...Miss Ginger don't play that game.

I really can't take any credit for how the tides have changed.  There have been so many great researchers and therapists before me who have paved the way for making learning to communicate functional AND fun.  I am so grateful to do what I do this day and age and for the gift of learning from history.

Here are some pics of the day...

You can see my sweet mama in the third one in the pink sweater.  Isn't she beautiful?

Thanks to the Nashville Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America for allowing me to be a part of their meeting.