Your donation to the Hearing Milestones Foundation, a U.S. 501c3 organization, provides children with hearing loss the ability to receive the care they need to hear. All children deserve to hear the world around them without limitations. Your generous support will ensure every child can hear their parents, teachers, and friends so they can grow and flourish. Your donations will provide children the ABILITY to gain confidence, be their own best advocate, and harness their inner HEARO! The cost for hearing aid technology, doctor appointments, and hearing accessories are costly to families and many insurance plans label hearing aids as "cosmetic" and not medically necessary, leaving families with large out of pocket expenses. For bilateral hearing aids the cost can be up to $5,000.00. Then to further improve the child’s access to hearing so the child can hear in situations where background noise is present (restaurants, birthday parties) or distance (riding bikes, out for walks, playing on the playground, in their bedroom) then another hearing assistive device would need to be purchased. Costing up to $2,500.00. This does not include the routine follow up doctor visits and upkeep of the hearing aid.
Hearing sounds and words is how children learn to talk and understand their world around them.. A child with hearing loss who misses out on these sounds can struggle academically and socially. Your donation will provide children with live -long access to sound as simple as hearing their mother or father's voice for the first time.
Fact: About 90% of children will have middle ear fluid by the time they are 5 years old and it can take up to 3 months to clear.
Middle ear fluid is common in kids both with and without hearing loss. Many times, the fluid will clear on its own without any medical intervention. However, for children with repeated ear infections lasting many months PE tubes becomes necessary. For children with hearing loss this is especially difficult as they will struggle to hear even with their hearing aids. Children with a history of ear infections and children with hearing loss need to follow up with and ENT and audiologist on a regular basis to assure they are hearing to the best of their abilities. Depending on a family’s insurance these appointments can become expensive.
Hearing milestones uses donations to help cover what insurance does not. Donations can also be used toward sound field FM systems in the classroom which provide children with middle ear fluid (temporary conductive hearing loss) access to sound until their hearing returns to normal.
Fact: When children are not identified and do not receive early intervention, special education for a child with hearing loss costs schools an additional $420,000, and has a lifetime cost of approximately $1 million per individual.
Johnson, J.L., Mauk, G.W., Takekawa, K.M., Simon, P.R., Sia, C.C.J., & Blackwell, P.M. (1993).
Hearing Milestones On-line Curriculum was designed to be a fun interactive educational program for children with hearing impairment. The program is designed for students from K-12. Lessons start out easy teaching children about their hearing loss and how to read an audiogram and become progressively more involved to teach these now young adults about their rights and how to advocate for themselves. This curriculum ensures that all hearing impaired students receive the same education no matter where they live or how often much access they have to their D/HH teacher or Educational Audiologist.
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