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March 8, 2007
By Susan H. Glasgow, Executive Director of The Hearing and Speech Agency

Celebrate Success!

The Hearing and Speech Agency (HASA) has celebrated many successes in its 80 years of improving lives through communication, but none are as gratifying as those we see every day with babies hearing for the first time, children speaking their first words, people learning to read or speak fluently, and adults improving their hearing.

I often think of Stefano, who first came to HASA at 7 months old. Born with severe hearing loss, Stefano was doing well developmentally, but it was inevitable that his hearing loss would begin to affect his ability to communicate with his parents.

With access to educational materials and the specialists at HASA, Stefano’s parents have made critical, informed decisions to improve Stefano’s life. They’ve learned to use sign language and speech simultaneously to show Stefano that they understand him and to help stimulate his auditory pathways. Stefano’s parents also learned that a cochlear implant would improve his hearing, and subsequently his speech development.

At 15 months, Stefano received a cochlear implant, and he continues to attend HASA for therapy. Now Stefano’s parents celebrate his future, and they hope that he will attend our Gateway School’s Oral Program with other children who have cochlear implants and are learning to communicate orally.

HASA also provides support to adults. Our client Hasaune, for example, was 25 years old when specialists helped him confirm his self-diagnosed dyslexia. As a child he had difficulty speaking and reading, and he questioned why he wasn't learning like other students in his class. Although Hasaune was able to read words, he had difficulty understanding them in different contexts.

The spoken word is a critical piece to unlocking higher-level literacy, so HASA provides individualized programs to teach vocabulary and comprehension skills in meaningful contexts to adults. As Hasaune's vocabulary grew, so did his confidence.

“I’ve gone from being self-conscious to being self-confident,” Hasaune says. He now enjoys reading autobiographies and the newspaper, and using the Internet. He is completing his education and plans to attend college, and hopes to someday start a tutoring program for young African-American men.

Celebrating the progress our clients make toward success in their homes, schools and work is a daily joy. We welcome the opportunity to continue meeting the speech, language, and hearing needs of children and adults who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have speech and language disabilities, so that we may celebrate every client’s success.