April 2005

CHA stands for Camelot Hearing Association. It is made up primarily of Camelot Center parents and it is your organization to learn about, support and enhance the experience of Camelot students (your children). CHA is an organization devoted to promoting educational opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing children who attend Camelot Center.

HOW DO YOU JOIN CHA?

It is easy and membership is FREE! All you need to do is attend our meetings, which are held the first Wednesday of every month at 12:00 Noon at the Camelot Center offices and/or by sending your email address to Kathy Purtell, and we will put you on the e-mailing list. It’s just that simple.

CHA Happenings

CHA has been busy, here is summary of what we’ve done:

Our members donated several baskets to be auctioned in CHA’s name at the PTA’s Silent Auction. Thanks to them we earned $575.00 for our organization. Our deepest thanks to everyone who participated!

We would also like to thank those of you who generously donated money to our needy families at the Center. Because of YOUR generosity we were able to help SEVEN (7) families.

We held last month’s meeting at the Northern Virginia Resource Center (NVRC) and learned about all the really cool devices that are out there to help our children, for example an alarm clock that shakes the bed so our children can wake up on their own. Imagine that.

Plans are in progress for the development of the next family night, which we will be holding on April 20^th. Mark your calendars & details will soon follow.

Have we been busy, or what?

We still have several Camelot Dragons that are looking for good homes, please open your heart and your wallet and bring one home today. They are $10.00 each.

We also have Camelot CD cases for sale. They are a good place to keep all those really great Xbox games, music CDs, or DVD whose cases have somehow disappeared. These are only $5.00 each.

To order any of these fine products, please contact Kathy Purtell, or stop by the Camelot Center Office. Your continued support is greatly appreciated and as always, our children benefit from your purchases.

Here are some things to remember when interacting with our hard of hearing/deaf children (or any one else with a hearing loss for that matter):

It’s best to be face to face when speaking. This helps them to pick up on cues that help them understand your message.

If you were not understood, you could ask them to repeat what they heard and maybe you will have to rephrase what was said to be better understood.

Make sure you have their attention in the first place, after all, they may not hear you if they are not facing you and it’s harder to hear the further they are away from you. (I always forget this one).

And lastly, keep background noise to a minimum. While hearing people may be able to tune out the “white noises” people with assistive listening devices cannot necessarily do the same. Removing the distractions can facilitate the flow of communication.

I hope this information was helpful & I wish you best of luck in putting these tips into play.

Five Stages of Grieving Recently my mother was diagnosed with mild to moderate unilateral hearing loss. She was couldn’t believe this had happened to her. Before her diagnosis she would often complain that I was mumbling at her on the phone instead of speaking clearly. She would say that she taught us better that to mumble at people. My Mom was in denial about her hearing loss.

For those who have lived with normal hearing for most, or all of their life, the loss of their hearing can be like losing a part of themselves. They are likely to experience the following stages of grief:

1. Denial ~ not wanting to accept the loss.

2. Anger ~ this is not fair, why can’t you speak clearly?

3. Bargaining ~ if you do this for me I won’t have to do that. It’s an attempt to delay acceptance.

4. Depression ~ why is this happening to me? Why bother watching TV, talking to people, or going out, I won’t be able to hear anything?

5. Acceptance ~ I’m going to be okay, I can learn to adjust.

Thankfully my mother moved through her stages fairly quickly, after all her grandson is hard of hearing. She understands that her hearing loss, like his, could remain constant, or become progressive. She is exploring her assistive listening options and is considering different kinds of in-the-ear devices.

Not everyone goes through these stages so quickly or smoothly. Some people never overcome their loss and grieve for the sounds that they no longer hear. Some people go through these stages a number of times in relation to their progressive losses. The best we can do in those instances is to be compassionate and empathetic to their feelings.

~ contributed by Victoria Aponte

(5 stages developed by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying”

Next Meeting

Our next CHA meeting will be March 1, 2006 at Noon in the Camelot Center Office. We’d love to see you there!