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The doctor was concerned with his speech patterns and you know, just talking.
Ashley was born profoundly deaf in both ears.
Julia was diagnosed the day she was born.
I would say when Andy was two months old.
It wasn't until a couple months later - they thought it might have been just fluid in the ears -
so we went to Children's and then we found out he had profound hearing loss.
Our first concerns with Wade after his diagnosis were
essentially, that we were afraid he wouldn't have as full a life,
that it would be less than the extraordinary hopes that we had for him.
And the beautiful thing about the staff from the Center
was that they really encouraged us to be a student of Wade,
that we would study our little son who was just a few months old at that time
to really gather, what is it about him,
innately that was gonna help guide us toward what mode of communication would be the best fit for him.
We started exploring the different options of dual communication, auditory-oral, auditory-verbal,
and the Center was very good about presenting those choices to us.
So then we decided to start our A-V Therapy and it's gone so wonderfully.
And also with his speech, I like that they did one-on-one speech
and the parents got to participate
and I knew a lot of the techniques at home to improve his language and also his signs.
This therapy for me, as a parent, has given me a whole new outlook on how to teach my child
and how to influence my child and teach her vocabulary.
It's a whole way of life for us.
She is probably more ready for school than I am
I’m not quite ready to let her go yet.
Julia does absolutely phenomenal in school right now.
She is academically right where any first grade student her age is at.
A lot of the teachers don't even know Julia is deaf.
Now after therapy, he's reading at a third grade level,
we have high expectations for his ability to choose to be
and do whatever it is that he wants to do.