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The Charleston Gazette - News
Cherese Lee faced a tough choice when she and her husband decided to move back to West Virginia after living in Pennsylvania for a few years.
They wanted to come back, but since moving to Pittsburgh, their son Luke was born and diagnosed as profoundly deaf at 6 months old. They enrolled Luke in a less-than-traditional deaf learning school there, and he was excelling, but no such program existed in West Virginia.
“He was doing beautifully. His language was coming along really well,” Lee said.
“All of our family is here, my husband and I met in high school, [but] you’ve got to think of the kids first. So we started having to think, ‘Well, maybe we just can’t go back.’”
Instead, Lee did a lot of research, contacted leaders in the field and became the driving force behind creation of the state’s first auditory-oral learning preschool. After more than a year of hard work, the Luke Lee Listening, Language and Learning Lab, nicknamed “The L,” started in November.
Unlike traditional “total communication” deaf programs, which West Virginia did have, auditory-oral teachers rely solely on speaking and listening, avoiding sign language and other visual interactions.
Because Luke was considered profoundly deaf, he had to get cochlear implants. Doctors surgically place the device, which sends electrical stimulation directly to the auditory nerve of a person’s brain. The brain turns the electronic signals into sounds that can eventually be understood or “heard” by the user. First, however, the person must be taught how to process the information, which is why auditory-oral programs are important, Lee said.
After attending an auditory-oral program in Pittsburgh, Luke started comprehending sound and began to talk, Lee said.
Lee and Marshall University speech-language pathologist Amy Knell had to figure out the funding and logistical issues of starting a new program. They were initially turned down for a couple of grants, but last summer they were given a three-year grant from the state Board of Education to start The L. Support also comes from Marshall and private contributions, said Lee, who now lives in Poca with her husband and three young children.
Four mornings a week, in a college classroom-turned-preschool on the Marshall campus, the preschool’s four students participate in activities and games designed to improve their listening and speaking skills.
“We do a variety of vocabulary and language activities along with speech and listening type things,” said instructor Jenni Butler.
The kids, ages 2 and 3, practice asking for cookies, try to identify noises made by teachers, dance, sing and play instruments. Unlike developing children who can hear, these children can’t learn to speak simply by being immersed in a normal everyday environment, Knell said.
“Anything we can do to try and give them language in an everyday sense — these kids need it pointed out, driven into them,” said Knell, a speech pathologist who takes turns working with each child individually.
The intensive auditory-oral teaching approach lies mainly in modeling, imitating and repeating, she added.
It is important to start the education as early as possible in a child’s life, Butler said. Children with any level of hearing impairment can start at the preschool by age 2.
The goal is to get the kids “mainstreamed,” meaning they can attend a regular school in their home district, by the time they reach kindergarten age, Lee said.
“When these kids go back to their schools for kindergarten, they are functioning with their age-appropriate classmates,” she said.
The program’s instructors also offer a parent-infant program, where they teach caregivers how to talk and interact with babies diagnosed with hearing loss, Butler said.
This type of program, said Knell, was long overdue for West Virginia. Before November, the closest auditory-oral deaf learning programs were in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, she said.
For Lee, who had no prior background in education or hearing impairments, the process of creating a program was time-consuming and daunting at times, she said.
“When I went and met with the state Board of Education, it was [only] me,” she said. “I didn’t take it lightly and I went in there with my research. ... I wanted to do it right.”
As the first school year of The L comes to a close, its creators hope for the program to be self-sufficient by the time the three-year grant runs out. This means getting the word out and educating teachers, administrators and parents statewide, Lee said.
Telling people in West Virginia about auditory-oral learning and the program is important, Butler said, because some parents might not know it is an option.
For information, contact Knell at 696-3673.
Cherese Lee faced a tough choice when she and her husband decided to move back to West Virginia after living in Pennsylvania for a few years.
They wanted to come back, but since moving to Pittsburgh, their son Luke was born and diagnosed as profoundly deaf at 6 months old. They enrolled Luke in a less-than-traditional deaf learning school there, and he was excelling, but no such program existed in West Virginia.
“He was doing beautifully. His language was coming along really well,” Lee said.
“All of our family is here, my husband and I met in high school, [but] you’ve got to think of the kids first. So we started having to think, ‘Well, maybe we just can’t go back.’”
Instead, Lee did a lot of research, contacted leaders in the field and became the driving force behind creation of the state’s first auditory-oral learning preschool. After more than a year of hard work, the Luke Lee Listening, Language and Learning Lab, nicknamed “The L,” started in November.
Unlike traditional “total communication” deaf programs, which West Virginia did have, auditory-oral teachers rely solely on speaking and listening, avoiding sign language and other visual interactions.
Because Luke was considered profoundly deaf, he had to get cochlear implants. Doctors surgically place the device, which sends electrical stimulation directly to the auditory nerve of a person’s brain. The brain turns the electronic signals into sounds that can eventually be understood or “heard” by the user. First, however, the person must be taught how to process the information, which is why auditory-oral programs are important, Lee said.
After attending an auditory-oral program in Pittsburgh, Luke started comprehending sound and began to talk, Lee said.
Lee and Marshall University speech-language pathologist Amy Knell had to figure out the funding and logistical issues of starting a new program. They were initially turned down for a couple of grants, but last summer they were given a three-year grant from the state Board of Education to start The L. Support also comes from Marshall and private contributions, said Lee, who now lives in Poca with her husband and three young children.
Four mornings a week, in a college classroom-turned-preschool on the Marshall campus, the preschool’s four students participate in activities and games designed to improve their listening and speaking skills.
“We do a variety of vocabulary and language activities along with speech and listening type things,” said instructor Jenni Butler.
The kids, ages 2 and 3, practice asking for cookies, try to identify noises made by teachers, dance, sing and play instruments. Unlike developing children who can hear, these children can’t learn to speak simply by being immersed in a normal everyday environment, Knell said.
“Anything we can do to try and give them language in an everyday sense — these kids need it pointed out, driven into them,” said Knell, a speech pathologist who takes turns working with each child individually.
The intensive auditory-oral teaching approach lies mainly in modeling, imitating and repeating, she added.
It is important to start the education as early as possible in a child’s life, Butler said. Children with any level of hearing impairment can start at the preschool by age 2.
The goal is to get the kids “mainstreamed,” meaning they can attend a regular school in their home district, by the time they reach kindergarten age, Lee said.
“When these kids go back to their schools for kindergarten, they are functioning with their age-appropriate classmates,” she said.
The program’s instructors also offer a parent-infant program, where they teach caregivers how to talk and interact with babies diagnosed with hearing loss, Butler said.
This type of program, said Knell, was long overdue for West Virginia. Before November, the closest auditory-oral deaf learning programs were in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, she said.
For Lee, who had no prior background in education or hearing impairments, the process of creating a program was time-consuming and daunting at times, she said.
“When I went and met with the state Board of Education, it was [only] me,” she said. “I didn’t take it lightly and I went in there with my research. ... I wanted to do it right.”
As the first school year of The L comes to a close, its creators hope for the program to be self-sufficient by the time the three-year grant runs out. This means getting the word out and educating teachers, administrators and parents statewide, Lee said.
Telling people in West Virginia about auditory-oral learning and the program is important, Butler said, because some parents might not know it is an option.
For information, contact Knell at 696-3673.