Programs for Children with Sensory Disorders

American School for the Deaf- ASD
New England Center for Hearing Rehabilitation- NECHEAR
Soundbridge- CREC

See also, Service Guideline # 5- Young Children Who Are Hard of Hearing or Deaf

Name: American School for the Deaf, Early Childhood Services
Address: 139 North Main Street, West Hartford, CT 06107
Contact Person: Dianne Martin (ext. 347) or Karen Stockton (ext. 391)
Telephone: (800) 244-0420 (all numbers are voice and TTY)
Email:  Dianne.Martin@ASD-1817.org or Karen.Stockton@ASD-1817.org
Fax: 860.570.2299

History:
For more than 25 years, Early Childhood Services has provided families with the resources and guidance needed to create an environment in which their deaf or hard of hearing infants and young children can reach their full potential.  Our program focuses on maximizing a child’s ability to listen and talk through the use of hearing aids or cochlear implants.  We provide families with information regarding the different methods of communication available including the use of speech, listening and sign language systems.  Our goal is for children to be taking advantage of every opportunity in both their community and educational setting when they turn three years old. 

Towns Served:  Statewide 

Staffing:
Our service providers are professionals who have received special training in supporting families with infants and young deaf and hard of hearing children including those with additional developmental needs.  Our pediatric audiologists have extensive experience working with very young children with hearing losses from mild to profound, including auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony, using the latest technology of hearing aids, FMs and cochlear implants.  We have bilingual staff fluent in Spanish and sign language.  All staff meet the Connecticut Birth to Three personnel standards.   

Service Delivery:
Each child and family receives a comprehensive assessment.  Together the family and service provider develop an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP).  Based on a family’s choice, our services can be provided to support families that have chosen to use aural/oral, auditory/verbal or sign language systems to communicate with their child. Services are provided year round with flexible hours to meet the needs of each family.  Services may include: 

Child and Family Services

• Service coordination
• Home visits
• Audiological services
• Cochlear implant services
• Loaner hearing aids
• Other necessary supports such as physical therapy and occupational therapy

Parents are the most critical element to a child’s success.  We teach families to help their child learn to listen, communicate and develop speech and language.  We make home visits to involve the family in the teaching and learning process.  Daily routines become language learning opportunities for each child.  Taking advantage of teachable moments, incorporating ideas into daily routines and making them practical and easy to accomplish results in faster progress for the child’s auditory skills and communication development.   

Audiologists provide comprehensive audiological testing, services and cochlear implant management.  Cochlear implant services include consultations, mapping, therapy, troubleshooting, and assistance with repairs including spare parts.  We have ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response) and OAE (Otoacoustic Emissions) equipment for use as part of our diagnostic testing.  Amplification includes the latest technology in fitting hearing aids, and FMs.  A loaner hearing aid bank is available for trial amplification and during repairs.  Audiological services are available in several locations throughout the state. 

Family Support Activities

• Weekly parent meetings
• Annual early childhood conference
• Family learning weekend
• Father’s weekend/Mother’s weekend
• Sign language classes

Name: New England Center for Hearing Rehabilitation-NECHEAR
Address: 354 Hartford Turnpike, Hampton, Ct 06247
Contact Person: Diane Brackett
Telephone: (860) 455-1404
Fax: (860) 455-1396
email: nechear@snet.net

History: 
NECHEAR was created with the primary goal of helping people with all degrees of hearing loss become fully participating members of their families and communities.  We strongly believe that children, regardless of the degree of hearing loss, should have the opportunity to develop spoken language and understandable speech, through the use of hearing. To accomplish this goal, we immediately begin intervention with the child and family using the best possible hearing aids, FM systems or cochlear implants.  Our intensive approach is aimed at preparing children to be educated with other children who have normal hearing, if possible by the age of three. Since we are not affiliated with a school, we have an unbiased approach to exploring educational options.  NECHEAR and its staff are recognized as pioneers in effectively mainstreaming children with hearing loss and in determining candidacy for cochlear implants in very young children.    

Towns Served:
Our program is statewide.  Therefore, we conduct all of our intervention services in the child’s home or other daily living environment.

Staff:
Our caring staff members have many years of experience in providing intensive speech, language, and listening intervention for infants and toddlers with hearing loss, as well as support for their families.  The hearing-related home-based sessions are provided by speech-language pathologists, rehabilitative audiologists, and pediatric audiologists, with additional comprehensive services conducted by physical therapists, occupational therapists and social workers.   

Service Delivery:
Regardless of where you live in Connecticut, we provide these year-round aural habilitation sessions in the home.  We use an auditory verbal approach, resulting in children learn to use hearing as a vehicle for developing spoken language. Siblings and extended family members are encouraged to participate and learn.  With understandable speech as the goal, it is possible for your child to be educated at local schools with neighborhood peers.   Parent education is included in each home visit as well as in organized group meetings and conferences.  Your input as parents is critical as our pediatric audiologists select the latest technology (hearing aids, FM systems) to help your child hear at home, in day care and other daily listening environments.  Our experienced early intervention team will support you as you make decisions regarding your child’s progress, amplification choices, possible cochlear implant candidacy, and future educational placement.   

In the NECHEAR Birth to Three Program we: 

Empower parents to make decisions for their child that fit their lifestyle and community 

• Conduct all sessions in the home or other daily living setting to demonstrate how to use these environments and daily routines for effective language learning. 
• Provide a full range of diagnostic hearing testing for infants and toddlers by pediatric audiologists with expertise in fitting hearing aids and FM systems for young children.

• Determine candidacy for early implantation, work closely with a variety of cochlear implant surgical centers, provide cochlear implant therapy, program (map) all available devices, and supply back-up equipment and supplies.
• Provide opportunities for parents to meet with other families of infants and toddlers with hearing loss, as well as older children and adults.
• Conduct parent information sessions to inform families of the latest advances in technology, their legal rights, techniques for encouraging speech and language, educational options, and transition issues.
• With the parents, develop a plan to ensure smooth transition to the public school, to include visiting potential school settings, deciding on support services, and establishing goals and objectives specifically related to the hearing loss.

Our Birth to Three program is one component of NECHEAR’s extensive services for children and adults with all degrees of hearing loss. We can continue to support your child’s listening, language, and educational needs after they transition from Birth-to-Three.

Name: Soundbridge Birth to Three
Address: 123 Progress Drive, Wethersfield, CT 06109
Contact Person: Jennifer Coyne
Telephone: 860-529-4260, x 30
Fax: 860-257-8500

Purpose:
Soundbridge Birth to Three specializes in helping children who have hearing loss learn to listen and talk.  We begin by fitting your child with the best hearing instruments that today’s technology can provide.  Then, our focus is on helping your child learn to listen because that is the most effective route toward intelligible spoken language for a child who is deaf or hard of hearing.  Parents, teacher or auditory-verbal therapist, and audiologist all work together to be sure that the family is well-supported and guided. 

Towns Served:  Statewide

Staffing:
As appropriate in order to address each child’s individual needs, comprehensive services are provided by certified auditory-verbal therapists, teachers of the deaf, audiologists, cochlear implant specialists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and bilingual translators. 

Service Delivery:
We provide a variety of year round services for hearing-impaired children and their families.  One of the first concerns is to select appropriate hearing aids for your child.  We help you learn how to put them on your child, and make sure they are working properly.   We are happy to offer you audiological services such as hearing assessment, hearing aid evaluation, and hearing aid dispensing here at Soundbridge in Wethersfield, or at an approved clinic near your home.  For satisfactory results with very young hearing-impaired children, the audiological process requires the special expertise of an experienced pediatric audiologist who sees large numbers of young children. 

Once the hearing aids are on, the spoken language learning process can begin in earnest.  With Soundbridge, you have the choice of two ways of receiving parent-child guidance services:  primarily through home visits by a Soundbridge teacher of the impaired, or primarily through auditory-verbal therapy at Soundbridge in Wethersfield.  In both cases, the professional you will see is an experienced teacher of the hearing-impaired or a certified auditory-verbal therapist who has received special training in the needs and concerns of very young hearing-impaired children and their families.  The teacher’s job is to help you help your child develop listening and talking abilities, and to provide you with the information and support you need to carry out that very important task.  When and if additional services are needed, the Soundbridge staff includes other professionals who can provide diagnosis and therapy in all of the areas noted above. 

For children who are potential cochlear implant candidates or for those who have already had implants, we provide pre- and post-cochlear implant therapy to help the child learn to use their new auditory abilities in learning spoken language. 

Soundbridge Birth to Three is part of the larger CREC Soundbridge program, which provides a broad variety of services to hearing-impaired children from birth through age 21 throughout the state of Connecticut.  The vast majority of the school-age children we serve are in their own home schools, in regular educational settings.  For all parents we offer parent-tot support groups, a parent-to-parent network, access to all Soundbridge parent meetings and events, and counseling services as appropriate.