June 2, 2016

Today our group at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital saw a group of deaf-blind children. These children were under the care of a group of nuns. Due to the severity of some of the children’s disabilities, it was often difficult to complete any hearing testing. However, we were still successful in identifying hearing loss, eligibility for speech therapy and those with normal hearing. We had one 8 year old boy that we fit with hearing aids. He was very still and patient during the entire process. Once the hearing aids were turned on he began vocalizing, clapping and laughing because he could finally hear. It was amazing! One of the nuns was also fit with hearing aids. She was extremely happy that she could hear again and became a little teary-eyed.

One of the interesting parts of today was learning to be patient with the children and to not give up on testing easily. A lot of them required a little extra time so they could feel the equipment and actually help us do the testing! At one point we had a little boy take the probe tip for one of our pieces of equipment and put it in his ear for us. It was hilarious!

Our outreach group will post about their experience later tonight!

Kalee