My son Jay has whiled away the summer watching episodes of Sponge- Bob, which he can now
fully enjoy via closed captioning since becoming a proficient reader. But with summer drawing to a close and Jay about to return to his first experience of attending school without a teacher’s aid in the classroom, I find myself wishing that everything in life came with captions. I’m nervous about him keeping up with the harder material of third grade, and dread subjects like social studies and science in which the teacher spends a lot of time talking, making it harder for Jay to follow along. Although Jay won’t have the teacher’s aid he’s had in previous years, thankfully, he’ll still have access to an interpreter and a dedicated teacher for the hearing impaired. The situation is an ideal one for us and allows Jay to be mainstreamed while still getting the benefit of having educators who understand how children with hearing loss learn best.
Back-to-school shopping this year also included a new pair of hearing aids for Jay, a set that interprets high-frequency sounds, which he has difficulty hearing, into a lower register so that speech is clearer rather than merely amplified. They are also water-resistant, although I wouldn’t dare test that claim. As the mother of an active, sweaty, eight-year-old boy, I think this is the greatest innovation since the lightbulb.
There is a function on these hearing aids which enables them, in tandem with a magnet attached to the receiver, to automatically select the telephone program when the phone handset is held close. Most of the technology is way over my head – I don’t even know how to work an iPod. But I do know there has been a great improvement in Jay’s previously one-sided phone conversations and he loves talking on the phone with (or at) his grandmother.
These hearing aids also come with a command center where we can control volume, select listening programs and check battery status. Plus, there is an accessory that allows for Bluetooth® compatibility for MP3 players, televisions and, when he gets older, a mobile phone. So later on Jay can be as plugged in as the rest of his tween peers – but right now I just want to make it through the third grade.
As awesome as these new hearing aids are, they are still visible reminders of Jay’s separation from the rest of the kids in his class. Thus far his classmates have accepted the hearing aids and the presence of his interpreter and Jay seems to have taken it all in stride with no apparent embarrassment. Whenever I casually ask about the other kids in school, Jay always says that everyone is nice, and he even brags about how many girlfriends he has.
As Jay grows older and more independent, I am both proud and anxious for him as he learns more about how to advocate for himself in the classroom. This year will be a huge milestone for us both. I will have to remind myself that the ultimate job of a parent is to offer as much support and encouragement to my child as possible, knowing that he must learn to take responsibility for himself – even if there’s a little more to that for Jay than for his classmates.
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