A Parent's Guide to Hearing Loss

Produced by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program

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Your Community

Sometimes you may have decided on services or programs for your child that may not be available in your area. For example, you may have decided that you would like your toddler to learn to use a certain set of communication building blocks, or learn a certain language. But your community may not offer teaching of these building blocks and languages to infants and toddlers.

You can tackle this problem in many different ways. You can talk with your child's service coordinator (or another member of your child's team of professionals) about setting up a program in your community that will teach these skills. As you might expect, this approach can take a lot of time and effort, but can be worth the work. You can also choose to move to a community where the services are offered. Or you may wish to choose a different service or program. Talking with other parents and with professionals can give you more ideas.

Glossary

Building Block(s): "Building Blocks" refers to the different skills that parents can use to help their child learn language. There are many types of building blocks, and a family can pick and choose the building block (or blocks) that work best for their child and family. The following is a list of many commonly used building blocks.

• Conceptually Accurate Signed English (CASE)
• Cued Speech
• Finger Spelling
• Listening / Auditory Training
• Manually Coded English (MCE)
• Natural Gestures
• Speech
• Speech Reading (Lip Reading)

Service Coordinator: This is a professional that is assigned to help a family work through the IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan). Every family that takes part in this program is assigned a service coordinator. This professional works closely with the family to set up the services in the Part C program. The service coordinator talks with the family to learn about their concerns, resources, and priorities.

Professional: For this CD-ROM, a professional is a person who has special training in health and education and works with children and families.

For more information or to order additional copies of "A Parent's Guide to Hearing Loss" visit CDC's website at www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/ehdi.