This is our son ............ He is in ..........class.
...........is a very friendly and affectionate boy. A
natural leader, talkative, intensely inquisitive, very stubborn at times,
and very talented at drawing and making Lego. He loves to make up games
and sometimes can be a little bossy. Oh! By the way, he also wears hearing
aids. They are red, (his favourite colour) with Winnie the Pooh stickers
on them. He wears them, as he has only 70% of his hearing, a permanent
loss, due to his 9 week prematurity. The hearing aids do not give him
perfect hearing like glasses will do with a "sight loss" so
he still struggles to hear in a noisy environment like school. Therefore,
he has what is called a FM, a small receiver attached to a bone coloured
hearing aid, which picks up the voice of his teacher, when she wears the
compatible lapel mike and battery pack. Her voice is then unobstructed
by any background noise and transmits directly into his aid.
............., is of course in every other way a normal
boy, and likes to be treated like everyone else. His hearing aids are
very much a part of him and he is very protective of them. He doesn’t
like anyone poking them or touching them, in much the same way the sight
challenged, don’t like to have their glasses played with or touched. He
will explain what they are for if asked politely, if he is in the mood.
He forgets he is wearing them, and most children do too once they get
to know him.
We decided to write to all of you so that if your children
do notice them and talk about them with you. You can answer most of their
questions, therefore taking the pressure off our son having to tell 40
children the same thing over and over. And to help us, and ......... to
settle in (you have no idea how many times WE have to explain them too!)
We are not sensitive about them or ashamed, and ............
certainly has no idea that he is any different to anyone else. Daddy wears
glasses and he wears Hearing Aids. And that’s the way we are sure he will
be treated here at........................... (school).
We hope you remember all the talents we talked about
first up that describe our son and get to know him - not as "the
child with hearing aids" but as ............................, "you
know the friendly, outgoing, boy with the blond hair, that loves space
ships and rockets!" Because that’s who he is to us, his family and
his friends.
Thank you for your time.
