2016.12.11
The Liberty Times
Summary:
Accompanying families with children with hearing loss, Children’s Hearing Foundation (CHF) has helped about 4,000 children with hearing loss learn to speak. For its 20th anniversary, CHF organized an event to showcase its achievements. At the event, CHF also broadcast Hear the Sounds of Dreams, a short documentary narrating the diverse lives of youth with hearing loss whom CHF has helped. One of the youths featured in the film, Yi-Hsuan Lin, attended the event. Yi-Hsuan is currently a junior at Taipei University of Marine Technology. She was diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of 3. Thanks to the help of CHF specialists and her mother, Yi-Hsuan gradually learned to speak. With both auditory-verbal training and knowledge of sign language, she often acts as an interpreter for other classmates with hearing loss .
Fiona Chiu, the specialist that helped Yi-Hsuan, said that treatment for children with hearing loss needs to start as early as possible, ideally before the age of 3. In recent years, CHF has made auditory-verbal services more accessible by developing tele-practice sessions. Now CHF has students from Taiwan’s offshore islands and even from the United States and Germany.
Dr. Chuan-Jen Hsu, Vice Superintendent of Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, also attended today’s event. He reminded that hearing loss can be found soon after a child is born. He hopes that with CHF promoting early intervention and training, the vision of every child with hearing loss being able to speak can be realized.
Source: http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/1914098
