Girl with no ears denied hearing aid
Aug 2nd, 2007 | By Steve | Category: News
15-month old Samantha Collins has Treacher Collins syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects the growth of her facial bones. She was also born without ears - she doesn’t even have holes that would lead into the ear canal on the side of her head.
Currently, Samantha has a standard hearing aid that her parents strap to her head using a bandage. This allows her to hear some noises but the bandage doesn’t stay on an active baby’s heard for long. The answer is a Bone Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA) that would be fixed to Samantha’s head and wouldn’t move.
Unfortunately the Collins family’s medical insurance company, United Healthcare, are willing to pay for the surgery to implant the hearing aid, but are not willing to pay for the device itself.
Without the hearing aid, doctors say Samantha will likely never learn to speak. As it is, the only sounds she makes is the banging together of toys and some petite squeals.
Read the original article.
Many schools for the deaf have at least one child with Treacher Collins Syndrome…and it is true, they have NORMAL intelligence and once let loose on learning, are unstoppable!
This child is learning ASL and this will be the biggest factor in her school success since she will have a problem articulating words with her surgeries still not completed. Removing the language barrier by using ASL will also allow her to socialize with her deaf classmates more easily as well as learn English.
Hang a hearing aid on her, by all means, since all children need all avenues of input…but don’t forget the major language input for a deaf child is visual.
Agreed, Diane. Unfortunately this article makes no mention of whether this child is using sign language. Does it? I might have missed it as I had to read it in a hurry on my lunch break.
The original article does not mention ASL at all. It seems that her parents are really concentrating on the BAHA. Maybe they are not aware that learning ASL is a possibility and would be beneficial?
Oops, I was following the links and landed on a page that had a similar little girl on it, thinking it was the same one. This second child has been learning ASL:
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=47888
Sorry to make you reread the first article!
I read this article today and was wondering if this family still has problems with their daughter’s hearing aids staying on.
I know of a hair barrette, hearing aid tether that hooks onto the aid and then clips into the child’s hair.
Their called SafeNSound Hair Clipz.
If you think she or some other family might benefit from them, you can find them at http://www.getsafensound.com
Hope this helps someone.
Jen