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February 18, 2006
Newport family prepares for son’s potential hearing loss
If 8-year-old Zachary Farnsworth loses his hearing, as doctors have said could happen, he would join only a handful of Washington County children with severe hearing loss. While hearing loss can occur at any age, there typically aren’t many youth in the area who are deaf or severely impaired, said Jim McCauley, president and longtime member of Friends and Parents of the Hearing Impaired, a group that has helped raise funds for the needs of the hearing impaired in the Mid-Ohio Valley since the mid-1970s.
“There aren’t great numbers of children going through this here,” McCauley said. “It’s usually between two and three to 12 to 15 children at a time with a severe impairment.”
Zach Farnsworth’s parents, Matt and Jennifer, are trying to learn sign language with their son now in case he is soon one of those children.
“He is deaf in one ear and has partial hearing in the other,” said Matt Farnsworth, of 18 Charles St., Newport. “We’re trying to learn now so that if he loses it the rest of the way we can communicate.”
The hearing loss has already had a big impact on his young son’s life, said Farnsworth.
He can no longer hear the counts on football drills and can’t be in gymnasiums because the acoustics cause a condition called recruitment, caused by the loss of tiny hair cells in the cochlea. It causes extreme sound sensitivity to the point where a listener can be overwhelmed by sounds of certain frequencies, although they can barely hear others.
“He can’t go to assemblies or school dances anymore,” Farnsworth said. “But he said ‘Dad, I might miss that but I’m happier that it doesn’t hurt.’”
Socialization is just one area where hearing impaired children may struggle, said McCauley.
“If they can’t communicate, they don’t have friends,” he said. “Also if you can’t communicate it makes it very difficult to learn. Kids born with hearing impairments don’t develop language normally, they’re typically far behind in reading skills and may need extra classes or tutoring to catch up.”
There is some good news for local children like Zach, said McCauley, who notes that as recently as the early 1980s local schools had special units for deaf children that operated completely independently from the rest of the school.
“The technology is better now and society is more tolerant,” he said. “I think it’s important for deaf students to have the option of going to public schools. If they don’t there’s a danger that they won’t be able to communicate with the hearing world.”
McCauley’s daughter, now in her 30s, is an example of how well today’s technology can work for the deaf.
“She had a cochlear implant and has dramatically improved,” McCauley said. “She can understand about anything. She even listens to music on an I-pod.”
By Kate York
http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/new43_218200621213.asp
Posted by 4HL on February 18, 2006 8:31 AM
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