Quote:
Originally Posted by LTHFAdvocate
You can have a goal (even a primary goal) of maximizing speech and hearing outcomes without abandoning other goals. Our clinic provides referrals for counseling services, and our non-profit does advocacy for IEPs (and NOT just for implanted patients, and NOT just for patients of the clinic). No, we don't do home visits, but honestly, outside of an IFSP, who does? It's just not feasible, especially not in California. Anyone at our clinic who downplayed the life-changing event of implantation wouldn't last here very long.
No one "rushes" families into decisions at our clinic, when the families are ready to schedule surgery, they schedule it. Our clinic has in-person support group meetings where they can meet other families at various stages of the implant evaluation (or post-implant) process, and we work very closely with both state early intervention programs and local schools who have hearing impaired students.
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Then you are doing more than most. I see that you refer for counseling services....pre or post-implantation?
The point is, there are still individuals who are not receiving comprehensive services such as the ones that you have outlined that are provided by your clinic. And there seem to be more individuals who are not receiving services such as this than are.
Perhaps the rushing is subtle. Do you, in fact, present the view that time is of the essence in receiving maximum benefit in the area of speech and hearing? That has the proensity to coney to a parent of a newly diagnosed child that it is necessary that the implant be done ASAP, and then we'll deal withthe other issues at a later date. It also has the propensity to communicate to a parent of a newly diagnosed child that CI, and creation of sound perception, is the most important variable in learning to deal with their child's deafness. It can very well be a part of the picture, but it is by no means, the biggest part of the picture. If it were, we would not still be experiencing the magnitude of educational and social difficulties that we continue to see in CI recipients.