( BACK TO SOUNDBRIDGE PROGRAMS AND SERVICES )

Purpose:
Soundbridge Birth to Three specializes in helping children who have hearing loss learn to listen and talk.  We begin by fitting your child with the most appropriate hearing instruments that today’s technology can provide.  Then, our focus is on helping your child learn to listen and understand, because that is the most effective route toward intelligible spoken language, academic achievement, and access to the hearing and speaking world.  Parents, audiologist, and Auditory-Verbal therapist or teacher work in partnership to be sure that your child and family are well-supported and guided.

Towns Served:  Statewide

Staffing:
As appropriate, in order to address each child’s individual needs, comprehensive services are provided by certified Auditory-Verbal Therapists, teachers of the hearing-impaired, pediatric audiologists, cochlear implant specialists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and bilingual translators.

Service Delivery:
Getting started.  Birth to Three services are provided year round.  Here is what happens for most families at the very beginning.  At Soundbridge, all of the early work with very young children who have hearing loss is carried out by the following team:

• an experienced pediatric audiologist,
• a certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist or Teacher of the Hearing-Impaired, and
• the parents and other important adults in the child’s life.

The first task is to select, customize, and fit appropriate hearing aids on your child.  It is important to do this in a careful-but-speedy fashion so that your child can have access to sound as quickly as possible.  The professional who manages this process is one of our  pediatric audiologists, who has a great deal of experience and expertise in working with very young children.  Both expertise and experience are essential for satisfactory audiological results for very young children. Access to sound is critical for the most effective development of listening and talking.  Because we are confident about the quality of our audiological services, we are happy to provide them to you at Soundbridge in Wethersfield.  However, some of our families who live at a distance do work with approved audiological clinics nearer their homes. 

As soon as the hearing aids are on and your child has appropriate access to sound, he or she can begin learning to listen and learning to talk.  The Auditory-Verbal Therapist or Teacher of the Hearing-Impaired will teach you how to help your child develop listening and talking.  These professionals have specialized training and/or certification in how to meet the comprehensive listening, spoken language learning, and developmental needs of young children who have hearing loss and their families.  Your child’s team will see you in your home to help you carry out strategies for learning spoken language through listening, throughout the course of your child’s everyday routines, activities, and play.  You will also continue to be seen by the team at Soundbridge regularly, for ongoing access to state-of-the-art audiological and educational support.  We work in partnership with you, giving you the guidance you need as you provide your child with the gift of learning to listen and talk.

Additional services.  All Soundbridge families will become acquainted with our Behavioral Health and Family Support Services Coordinator, and will access those services as needed.  For all parents, we offer parent-tot support meetings, counseling, a parent-to-parent network, and a full variety of parent educational meetings and social events.  When and if additional services are needed, the Soundbridge staff includes other professionals who can provide diagnosis, therapy, and support in all developmental areas, as indicated above. 

Cochlear implant expertise.  For children who are potential cochlear implant candidates or for those who have already had implants, we provide pre-implant assessment and information, and post-cochlear implant mapping and therapy to help the child learn to use their new auditory abilities in learning spoken language.

A bit of context.  Soundbridge Birth to Three is part of the larger CREC Soundbridge, a non-profit educational program, which provides a broad variety of services to approximately 500 children from birth through age 21, throughout Connecticut.  The vast majority (more than 85%) of our school-aged students are in their own home schools, fully mainstreamed in regular classrooms.  After age three, some of our Birth to Three children continue to receive services from Soundbridge, and some do not, depending upon the child’s needs and the services that are available in each child’s town.  Soundbridge Birth to Three staff are all experienced in helping families with the transition-out-of-Birth-to-Three process, and will help you prepare, understand, and experience it.

Contact: Jennifer Coyne or Dr. Elizabeth B. Cole
Telephone: (860) 529-4260
Fax:(860) 257-8500
Email: jcoyne@soundbridge.crec.org, ecole@soundbridge.crec.org