Hear and Say Centre

After much deliberation, Mr H and I have finally decided the pathway that we want to head for Moo's Early Intervention. We had the choice of going with Education Queensland or the Hear and Say Centre - and we have chosen the Hear & Say Centre. We have our inital interview this week by phone and admittedly, we are excited.

Hear and Say offer such a terrific service and it is all privately owned and more importantly, generously funded by XStrata Mining. We do have to pay a levy for each term - however this includes weekly Skype lessons for Moo and I with a teacher and also a resource box which is sent to us weekly!

Moo's program will use the Auditory-Verbal method which means that Mr H and I will be very much involved in Moo's therapy. It will also focus on ensuring Moo develops clear and correct spoken language skills using listening as the primary pathway and adding in lip-reading only when really needed. This will give Moo the oppurtunity to develop very normal speech production as well as age-appropriate language and grammar.

It was a hard choice and also a frustrating choice. Obviously due to my sister being a Teacher of the Deaf with Education Queensland - I just assumed we would go down this path with them. However, after many e-mails and phonecalls - it became apparent that EQ are currently understaffed due to various reasons and we were asked to drive to Warwick weekly/fortnightly for the Early Intervention classes. That would mean another 400km round trip in the car for Moo weekly....something that didn't tickle our fantasy AT ALL. We were really disappointed that an AVT for Hearing Impaired was not offered to us.....but my sister was even more disappointed.

She has spent many hours, days and weeks on the roads visiting parents in far west Queensland to offer them assistance and support for these gorgeous hearing impaired children and their families. Some weeks she would drive thousands of kilometres - all for the kids. The one thing that kept her going was the fact that she was making a difference in their lives - and making a difference with Education Queensland. Then to hear that her own neice could not be given the service by an AVT for Hearing Impaired really upset her.

So, lets hope that the Kevin Rudd Government pull their fingers out of every pie and start focusing on the important things - education and health.....both which are severely underfunded and understaffed.

In the meantime, I want to do a shout out to my beautiful sister Emma. Thank you for the e-mails and phone calls to try and obtain a service for Moo. You are such a beautiful, kindhearted person and Moo is ultimately blessed for having you in your life. You are a fantastic Teacher of the Deaf and the kids are so lucky to have you as their mentor...as are we for having you in our lives. Love you to the Moon & Back! xx