What a hard of hearing house looks like

Last week's post was about one student's inaccessibility within the educational environment. In spite of the outrage and shock, I thought to myself: hey, my home is pretty hard of hearing accessible! There is always room for improvement, but in our case this works for us.

Visibility, for the hard of hearing person is probably the most important feature of any house. Especially if one has a child. I know that if I can't see my daughter, I don't know if she's up to no good, is in trouble, or just simply gone to a corner to poop in peace. It's the quiet moments that do scare me the most! We do hope to take down the 'fake' wall separating the kitchen from the living room and create an open concept floor plan. Just need to save up for that... my guess is $50K or more, but if we can somehow figure out how to do it ourselves, then we'd save ourselves a chunk of money.

This is one reason why we chose this house. I could be in the kitchen and watching my girl play.

 

Do you use a cell phone?

A shot from one of SFU's lecture halls (Photo from Flickr) - this is scary for a hard of hearing student!

For those of you who answered the title question with a resounding 'YES!', then this might be an interesting article in relation to the use of technology in contemporary Canada.

Ah yes. In the last 48 hours or so, the hard of hearing community has felt a wave of shock and outrage. From Newfoundland and Labrador, to beautiful Vancouver Island (where I live), the impact of ONE teacher not willing to use an FM system. (and I bet you this teacher uses a cell phone, but more on that later)

My Hard of Hearing Teachers - Part 3

Since this week was the first week of school for many school-aged kids, I finally heard back from the last teacher I contacted. She has asked to remain anonymous, so I will refer to her as "the special teacher".  She is special because she was my first and last hard of hearing teacher! Long story short, my first interaction with her was when I was 6 months old, when she came to my parents place to help jump start my speech and language skills.  Later, I had her again for preschool - some of my best memories are in her class! Finally, she was with me until the very end of my high school years. What a story to conclude this mini saga of My Hard of Hearing Teachers Parts 1, 2 and now 3!

On having a strong willed child

This week has been a challenging one in parenting. While it comes as no surprise that my girl is strong willed, my dad sent me the below photo to help calm me down.

Photo from Free Range Learning