The Queen Bean

                                    

Clarke School for Hearing and Speech are not only a school but a support system, advocate, and Hear-Os. We were first time parents trying to figure out how to care for a baby. Ellie was 2 days old when we were told she had failed her hearing screener, but were reassured it's probably just fluid. Over the next few months we had 2 more failed screeners and found the extent of her hearing loss from her first ABR. 

Immediately after her diagnosis we were put in touch with Clarke and assigned with her amazing speech therapist Alisa. At 5 months old our little girl got her first pair of hearing aids and we immediately started therapy with Clarke School. Ellie's therapy sessions involved us, her teachers, and her grandparents and has had them at home, daycare, video chat, and toddler groups as she got older. Therapy sessions weren't only about teaching Ellie but teaching us what to work on daily. 

Clarke has introduced us to amazing families who we now call friends and now that Ellie is older she attends summer school at Clarke. During summer school, Ellie gets 1 on 1 therapy EVERY DAY and gets to work on her auditory oral skills (while she just thinks she's playing) and they even had an ice cream truck come once a week last summer. Our sugar Queen loved it! 

The support of Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech has helped guide us as a family. Thanks to them, she not only speaks, but sings beautifully. She's learning how to communite more every day and while we still have to puzzle together some of her speech, man, she sure works hard. We are so incredibly proud of her. Please help us to assist Clarke in supporting families like ours. They have generously helped us since Ellie's diagnosis and we can honestly say she wouldn't be where she is today without them.
Thank you for helping our Hear-Os!