Welcome to the Warren Center

Summer is a time of milestones in my house as another school year ends and we celebrate one boy's birthday. It reminds me of the summer seven years ago when the boys got their first sets of hearing aids. Nicholas was four years old, and Seth was only 17 months old. Now the boys are older and have seen the benefits of wearing their hearing aids, life is so much easier for all of us.

In the beginning, every day seemed difficult, from keeping each boy's hearing aids separated from the others and matching the left and right ear molds with the appropriate aid.

At four, Nicholas was very good about wearing his hearing aids every day and keeping them in his ears. Seth, like any toddler, didn't want to wear much of anything let alone hearing aids! I spent my days literally chasing after him putting his hearing aids back in his ears.

I came up with a technique that was quick and easy. While standing up, I trapped him with my knees, held his head in a side headlock and put in one hearing aid. Then I switched sides with the headlock and the hearing aid. A quick kiss on the cheek and he was off and running.
Of course, he was yelling bloody blue murder during all this. Ah, the good old days!

It is easy to look back and chuckle, but my fears and anxieties were very real. "Will Seth learn to talk properly? How will they do in school? Will they make friends? What if their hearing worsens? What if I do something wrong with the hearing aids?"

If I could go back in time and comfort that struggling mother, my advice would be to give myself a break, to take a deep breath and enjoy my children more and let go of my constant fears. This is also my advice to any of you who are raising or caring for children with hearing loss. Enjoy your children! Rest assured that help, as well as, detailed explanations of anything you don't understand is only a phone call away. The entire staff of the Warren Center is dedicated to helping you help your children be successful. * The teacher in me has to add: Read to your children EVERY day.

Deb Pinkham serves on the Warren Center’s Board of Directors and is a teacher at the Mary Snow School in Bangor.

Can you believe that it is August, already? That can only mean one thing. Back to school is right around the corner. Getting ready for school for kids means having more than the pencils, paper, backpack and new clothes, it also means getting ready to learn. There is still time to pick up a good book for reading out loud or for pleasure. Reading helps to build vocabulary, grammar skills, and comprehension skills. Research tells us that a child’s reading abilities are greatly impacted by the vocabulary he is exposed to outside of books. In other words, the more words that a child has heard before or learned before he ever reads in print help him to become a better reader. Speech and language skills go hand in hand with literacy. So start early, and talk to and with your child. Here are some ideas that can help kids get ready for language and learning.

Most people get their vision checked annually and they always want to know if hearing is the same. Annual hearing evaluations are the best way to monitor your hearing for change overtime. If no change has been seen over a period of a few years less frequent evaluations may be discussed with your audiologist. If a person has known hearing loss annual hearing evaluations are essential in order to track the loss and to also help in decision making for assistive technology or amplification use. If a person is already using hearing aids annual evaluations will ensure that the hearing aids are programmed to best reflect the person’s needs.

Written by Warren Center Audiologist Dr. Amanda Samoluk, CCC-A & Dr. Kim Starkey, CCC-A

Thanks to all those who donated time, goods, and money to the effort. Special thanks to the Bangor Daily News, United Moving and Bailey Pods,

to Maine Equipment & Party Rental for the tent, to Shaw’s Supermarket for the drinks, and plastic bags and Tim Horton’s for donuts and coffee.