Resources For Parents Of Infants With Hearing Loss

We’re celebrating Better Hearing & Speech Month by highlighting Hearing First resources for parents of infants with hearing loss! Read our blog to find handouts, videos, and blogs that will help you power the listening, talking, and literacy potential for your baby with hearing loss this month and beyond!

Better Hearing & Speech Month is a great reason to celebrate the incredible outcomes possible for all children who are deaf or hard of hearing. To help you celebrate your LSL journey, we’ve put together a full list of our most popular resources to find inspiration, and help your baby with hearing loss learn to listen and talk with Listening and Spoken Language (LSL).

• Episode 1 of the Powering Potential podcast - In “The Diagnosis” episode of the Hearing First podcast, Powering Potential, you can hear from other parents who have walked the LSL journey as they share about their child’s hearing loss diagnosis and how they coped and moved forward with the information.
• Five Quick Tips for Parents of Children Using Hearing Technology - Listen to audio clips featuring Hearing First CEO, Dr. Teresa Caraway, and renowned audiologist, Dr. Jace Wolfe as they talk about the key information and advice parents of children with hearing loss who are learning to listen and talk should know!
• Early Brain Development - Learn about early brain development and how early experiences shape a baby’s brain on this page of our website.
• Growing Your Baby’s Brain for Listening, Talking and Reading - Download this handout to learn about the timelines of your baby’s brain development and helpful ways for you to help grow their brain’s for listening, talking and reading.
• Tips for Creating an Optimal Listening Environment - Get this handout to learn helpful ways to manage background noise around your home so your child can enjoy a fun and effective listening environment.
• How Five Minutes can Power Your Child’s Potential for Listening, Talking, and Reading - Download the Take Five handout and watch the step-by-step video to learn how the first five minutes of your day can be some of the most effective for starting your child’s day for great listening, talking, and reading outcomes!
• LSL Strategies to Support Serve and Return - Learn how the Serve and Return technique helps with early childhood development for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and download the handout with the specific LSL strategies to help bring Serve and Return to life!
• Tell Me All About It - Download this handout to learn why babies need to hear all kinds of words and sentences in their early years, and tips to help you make the most of everyday language.
• Read Together, Learn Together - Making time for regular reading will help your child gain important LSL and literacy skills that will pave the way for their success in school and in life. Learn why reading is important from day one, and learn a few strategies to ensure you’re helping your child build their literacy skills as you share books with them every day.

With these tips and resources, you’ll be on your way to helping your baby with hearing loss achieve listening and spoken language outcomes and powering their potential for a bright future full of language and literacy! For more support on your LSL journey, join our Family Support Community, where you can connect and grow with other families doing what it takes to help their child with hearing loss learn to listen and talk.