How do you measure a job well done? More wins than losses? More money made than lost? Maybe. For our family, though, it's something different.
My 6-year-old son, Ty, climbed up to the podium and addressed the crowd of 250 people present for the luncheon. His message was short but forcefully and plainly delivered. He looked pleased as punch and not a little amazed at all the clapping that went on when he finished speaking.
Two years later, in a dress shirt, tie and brand new Vans sneakers, he spoke clearly and confidently to a group of 500 that included master orator former president Bill Clinton. He was more nervous this time, but still he had practiced what he wanted to say. He clutched the white index card with his words printed on it, just in case. He didn't need it.
This year, his third grade teacher told me that he was chosen for the role of Daniel Boone in his school play because of his expressive way with language. I watched him rehearse his dramatic scene. The words poured out in a flurry, each one formed perfectly.
Each of these events is a huge accomplishment for him and our family. If you didn't happen to see the hearing aids that he wears in both ears, you wouldn't know he was born with hearing loss. Listening to him, you wouldn't know that he's had three surgeries to correct a cleft lip.
That's the beauty and the wonder that is Lexington Hearing and Speech Center. They do their job so well, you might not even notice it.
Lexington Hearing & Speech Center
When the Lexington Hearing and Speech Center hosted a dinner in August featuring former president Bill Clinton as guest of honor, the organization found itself on the radar of many in Lexington who may not have previously been very familiar with the center. For the past 50 years, however, LHSC has worked quietly and diligently to make a staggering impact on the lives of hundreds of families with children who have a speech, language or hearing impairment. At the heart of the organization's work is an understanding of the vitality of rendering effective communication skills at an early age.
"Communication is key to everything we do in life," said executive director Lori Shepherd. "It's key to having productive personal relationships, to having a good job, to being able to learn in school - so much wraps around it, and that's why we feel it's so important to get started very early and to make it work."
Having come a long way from its humble beginnings as a pre-school with six students, LHSC recently announced plans to move into the former Julia R. Ewan Elementary School on Henry Clay Avenue, a space with approximately five times the square footage of the current North Ashland facility. The expansion will help accommodate the growing waiting list that the current facility is too small to serve. Plans also include the addition of a class that will serve a handful of slightly older children who need a bit more attention, increased accessibility for the families that the center serves, and an enhanced preschool program to focus on children whose speech issues fall on the autism disorder spectrum.
Currently, the center consists of two distinct elements: an educational component with a pre-school and day school for children up to 6 years old, and a clinical side, which offers speech and hearing evaluation, therapy and consultation. According to Shepherd, both of these elements work in tandem to mainstream children with hearing, speech and language impairments, in order to prepare them to start first grade at an ageappropriate level with their peers.
"If you can remediate the problems when the child is very young, they won't need a lot of services later on," Shepherd said. Because neural pathways - the pathways that connect various parts of the nervous system - are formed within the first few years of life, speech and hearing issues should be addressed as early as within an infant's first few months, in order to ensure that those neural pathways are formed as optimally as possible.
"If you learn to listen and you learn to talk in those early years at the appropriate time levels, then those neural pathways are formed optimally," she said. "That's when your brain is malleable and designed to be forming those pathways."
With the implementation of newborn hearing screenings, a state-mandated universal hearing test that became part of Kentucky legislation in 2000, early detection of hearing impairments has increased tremendously - in fact, Shepherd calls the program one of the best things to ever happen in terms of treating children with hearing impairments.
"We fit babies now, because of that, as young as six weeks old," she said. "That child will lose no time."
If you feel there is a possibility that your child suffers from a speech or hearing impairment, LHSC urges you to call the center as early as possible to have the child screened. The clinic offers a host of evaluations and intervention programs. -
Saraya Brewer