New Here

[Guest guest]

I am new here and would like to introduce myself. Actually, I''ve been

lurking. I have three children, one of which is has a hearing loss....my

oldest who is 13 yrs old. She has a moderate bilateral hearing loss that

appears to be progressive. When found at age 4 she had a mild loss, but has

lost more in the mid-range frequencies. She wears two mini canal digital

hearing aids, is totally mainstreamed and this year has shown what a good

student she could be. She is beginning to self advocate, but is very, very

shy when it comes to advocating. My daughter is on an IEP with goals in self

advocacy and developing her note taking skills so that she can remain

competitive in the regular classroom. Unfortunately, we often hear that she

is " not deaf enough " to qualify for some services because her functioning

level is so high, but that is another long story. Currently, she does not

use any assistive tech devices like and FM or sound field amplification as

she has rejected being " not like the other kids " in her school (typical

teen). Her deaf friends in the school also reject many such

things...probably their age. BUT, she is now advocating for an accommodation

in things like assemblies and large arena lectures not just for herself but

for the other hard of hearing kids who are not on IEP's or 504 plans in her

school. Again, that is another long story.

I wanted to introduce myself and hopefully be able to contribute to this

group. Oh, yeah, we live in Oregon.