Show Notes

(Episode transcript below.)

In episode 12 of All Ears at Child’s Voice, Michael Douglas joined Tatum and Jessica to discuss hearing loss and bilingualism and how children with hearing loss can learn two (or more!) spoken languages. Michael is a speech-language pathologist and a certified Auditory Verbal Therapist. He currently works as the Consumer Engagement Program Manager for the cochlear implant manufacturing company, Med-EL North America. He previously worked as the principal of the Mama Lere Hearing School at Vanderbilt University and the director of the speech clinic and director of intervention services at the Center for Hearing and Speech in Houston.

On the episode, Michael spoke about…

• His experience as a therapist working with bilingual families and their children with hearing loss.
• The benefits of bilingualism & of supporting a family’s home language.
• How best to support a child’s two languages as they work toward becoming bilingual
• What English-speaking therapists can do to better support bilingual families & families who do not speak English
• Strategies & resources for therapist and families supporting children with hearing loss as they learn two languages
• And more!

In today’s episode, Michael shared several resources of parents and professionals working with children with hearing loss learning two or more languages, including…

• The book he authored on this topic entitled Dual Language Learning for Children with Hearing Loss available for sale at  medel-bridge.com for $20.
• com where you can order books in more than 40 different languages
• *Michael additionally recommends looking into resources from the John Tracy Clinic, Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children, Med-EL, Cochlear, and Advanced Bionics as these organizations have various resources written in languages other than English.

At the start of the episode, Tatum & Jessica also shared feedback listeners shared on our past two episodes that focused on communication mode, including the following message  from our guest on episode 10, Theresa Harp:

The feedback to the podcast episode on Communication Options has been insightful, to say the least! This is such an important topic that can be a sensitive subject for both families and professionals, but I strongly believe that having an open dialogue such as the one featured on this podcast is critical to learning! While I could discuss this topic all day long, time was understandably limited and, as such, I provided a very brief and basic overview of each communication modality. One of the ongoing challenges I find in this line of work is conveying information to families in a clear, simple, meaningful way without all the jargon that we professionals so often use. My explanations of the various modalities during the podcast were an attempt to do just that: simplify information for families, and do so within the time constraints of a 60-minute podcast.  When speaking directly with families, I go into much greater detail about the various communication modalities, answer any questions they have as best I can, and always refer them to resources where they can learn more. As we discussed during the podcast, every individual has an inherent bias and it is important that we as professionals do our best to provide information in an objective manner to the greatest extent possible. Because Child’s Voice is a listening and spoken language program, some of our discussion inadvertently may have been more centered around the listening and spoken language modality. However, I remain firm in my belief that there is no “best” choice when it comes to choosing a communication modality and that family members should be given equal access to comprehensive information so that they can make informed decisions.

Where to Find Michael

• Douglas@medel.com

Where to Find Us

 

This episode was recorded and edited by John McCortney.

Disclaimer: Child’s Voice is a listening-and-spoken-language program for children with hearing loss. All Ears at Child’s Voice: A Hearing Loss Podcast is a resource provided by Child’s Voice. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Child’s Voice. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by Child’s Voice employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of Child’s Voice.

Transcript

Tatum:                  Welcome to All Ears at Child’s Voice, a podcast discussing all things hearing loss. We aim to connect to parents of children with hearing loss with the professionals who serve them. We’re your hosts. I’m Tatum Fritz.

Jessica:                 And I’m Jessica Brock. Last week we finished our two episode series on modes of communication and talked with a mother about her family’s decision to use both listening and spoken language and sign language with their son who wears bilateral cochlear implants.

Tatum:                  And at the start of today’s episode, Jessica and I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on our last two episodes, both covered communication mode, before we introduce our guest for today.

Jessica:                 We have a few things to mention, the first of which is thank you so much to all of you who commented on our social media platforms saying how much you liked the episode. We saw a comment on instagram that said, “Great message,” about Dawn’s episode. And on facebook, someone said, “Sharing the journey is so important,” and we agree.

Tatum:                  Yeah, and then on instagram we got some comments about Theresa’s episode. One of them was, “This is by far my favorite episode. So many ideas are generated from this episode.” And then another comment said, “This is my favorite too. I love to see what support is out there for parents.” And then this parent said, “We did our own research and took our time to land on a bimodal communication route with ASL and cochlear implants. It’s not right for everyone but it’s right for us. Grateful there are programs out there focusing on an unbiased approach centered around what’s right for the family.”

Jessica:                 Yes, we love hearing from families and professionals. We also received feedback from Ben Lachman, who is the vice president of the National Cued Speech Association. He offered to us some terminology to aid in the explanation of cued speech. So we’ll share that with you now. He says, “The purpose of cueing is to have accurate visual access to conversational spoken language, with or without the ability to hear and everywhere in between. Cued language accomplishes the same thing as spoken language does in terms of communicating language from person to person at conversational speed and it even uses the same phonemic building blocks, except it does that visually.  It then facilitates the same language acquisition processes that spoken language utilizes, except visually.”

Tatum:                  Yeah, so we are grateful for Ben Lachman for writing in because as we’ve mentioned before our speciality is Listening and Spoken Language so it’s great to hear from other professionals who know more about other areas. And then we also had a quick note from Theresa who was our guest from two episodes ago. We’ll post her full message on our show notes but we also wanted to touch on it.

Jessica:                 Yeah, she appreciated all the feedback on that episode and wanted to clarify that when speaking with families she goes into much greater details about the communication modes than she did on the podcast due to time constraints. She always refers them for additional resources if they have more questions. And then Theresa also wanted to remind everybody that we all have inherent bias. It’s important that we as professionals do our best to provide information in an objective manner to the greatest extent possible. She also says she remains firm in her belief that there is no best choice when it comes to choosing a communication modality and that family members should be given equal access to comprehensive information so that they can make informed decisions.

Tatum:                  And then just a quick note, we will definitely put her full statement on our show notes. So if you are interested in that go to our website to check it out.

Jessica:                 So now let’s move on to our discussion today. Today will be talking to Michael Douglas about working with bilingual families and children with hearing loss learning two or more languages. Welcome Michael.

Michael:               Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Jessica:                 We’re excited to have you. I have to take this moment to apologize to our listeners for my vocal quality. I am fighting a cold. Anyways, back to Michael’s introduction.

Tatum:                  Yes. Welcome Michael. We’re really excited to have you here. Thank you for fitting us into your I’m sure very busy schedule.

Michael:               My pleasure.

Tatum:                  Michael is a Speech Language Pathologist and a certified Auditory Verbal Therapist. He currently works as the Consumer Engagement Program Manager for Med-El North America. He has previously worked as the principal of the Mama Lere Hearing School at Vanderbilt University and the director of the speech clinic and director of intervention services at The Center for Hearing and Speech in Houston. And Jessica and I both actually met Michael while we were studying at Vanderbilt as he was our academic advisor.

Michael:               That’s correct.

Tatum:                  Michael, can you share a little bit about your current role at Med-El?

Michael:               Yeah, we are involved in supporting our customers during all paths of the journey towards getting a cochlear implant: before, during and after. And I get the pleasure of managing a group of really talented engagement managers around the country who support those that are getting the implants, the professionals that serve them. We will do mostly informational counseling with candidates of cochlear implants and their families and maybe rehab workshops for the communities to help influence outcomes in the area and to bring communities together to support those with hearing loss that have the Med-EL device.

Jessica:                 That’s so cool.

Tatum:                  It sounds like good work.

Michael:               It’s fun.

Tatum:                  How long have you been with Med-El again?

Michael:               I started in Med-EL  of December of 2016.

Tatum:                  Oh, okay. So it’s been awhile.

Michael:               I served at Vanderbilt for five school years and then was in Houston since 1994.

Jessica:                 Michael guest lectured in a couple of Tatum’s and my classes on working with bilingual children and their families while we were, and you were at Vanderbilt. Michael, we’ll get more into it when we get into our main discussion, but could you briefly share about how your background, especially your experience working at the Center for Hearing and Speech in Houston has influenced your passion for and your knowledge in working with bilingual families?

Michael:               Yeah, yeah.

Jessica:                 It’s a big question.

Michael:               That’s a big question. But you know, one story comes to mind is when I was first starting out as a young therapist and at the time I was working at the Center for Hearing and Speech and it was the policy to only work with children in English. So we worked with children in English wherever they came from. And so there was one family that I volunteered to take because I had taken Spanish in high school and I learned Spanish along the way that I would work with him in English and  talk with his mom in Spanish. And so at the end of three years, he was doing really well and he was talking and I was going over his speech and language report and  his mom said to me in Spanish, she said, “Well, that’s great. He can talk to you and you can talk to his friends. And he can talk to his teachers at school, but he can’t talk to me.” And it was really hard. That was really hurtful, cause I felt her pain. And so eventually made my way into administration and started noticing that half of our clinic population was  from bilingual families and then of that half, only spoke Spanish. And so it was enough to support a whole caseload and they weren’t doing as well as the children were doing who only spoke English. And so we started shifting things up and I just, I guess it was that one moment that I never ever wanted to feel that way again or another clinician to feel that way again. But moreover, I never, ever, ever, ever, ever wanted another family member to feel that way ever about their own child. So, we did a lot of hard work and convincing and changes to what we were doing to meet the needs of these kids so that they can learn just as well as their English-speaking peers.

Tatum:                  At that time were you just a speech therapist on staff, did you have any admin position or did you, were you advocating as a clinician only?

Michael:               When that happened, when she, when she said that to me like it was, it was really stunning and I just kinda didn’t know what to do about it. It wasn’t until I was in an administrative position where I had like that 20,000 foot view of what was going on in the clinic and who was coming and what their needs were that I realized we can’t keep doing this to these kids.

Jessica:                 Time had gone by, I assume and the strong feelings that you felt at that moment probably subsided enough for you to have a plan of action, which is cool.

Michael:               Yeah. Yeah. I remember another study that I read, it was in 2000– it was a 2009 study where they found that the prevalence or incidence of hearing loss was higher in Hispanic-American families than it was others. So it made me realize that this wasn’t going away, you know, and we needed to do something.

Tatum:                  I always remember that story too that you’ve shared it while we were at Vanderbilt.

Michael:               Yeah.

Jessica:                 So  we’ll get more into all of that and what you did and all of that. But we first like asking our guests to share a story from the past week, so it could be related to what you do. It doesn’t have to be, anything cute or funny or heartwarming. Does anything come to mind?

Michael:               It’s kind of dual language related that just came, literally just popped up where this elderly deaf adult came to one of my talks about dual language and she came up and she said she was really excited that I was sharing all of this because she was a first generation Italian American. Her parents came over from Italy and then she lost her hearing when she was 18 months old and she said everybody told them not to speak anything but English to her. And so then over time at dinner they were speaking Italian to her siblings, but they would switch to her in English. And she was like, “I always hated that. It wasn’t fair,” you know? And then she said, it’s kind of sad story. It’s not really cute. It goes, it goes, it gets kind of dark. So she goes, she goes, “and then my mom got Alzheimer’s and as her mind started to go, she reverted back to Italian and I was the one left caring for her. And I lost my last two years of connection with her cause I didn’t know Italian.” And so it was just like, wow. And so when we’re, you know, we always get freaked out. We’re like, most of us therapists out in the field are monolingual therapists. Right? Um, and so we’re making recommendations for these multilingual families based on our monolingual perspective, thinking about what our needs and what we need to look good right now, but we’re not thinking like we need to be thinking beyond school. Like to the point of when it’s time for them to take care of their kids. It was a major shift for me.

Jessica:                 Wow. That’s  a good segue into our first question, I think, which is the big question, which is can children with hearing loss learn two languages?

Michael:               Yes, they can.

Jessica:                 What?! (laughs)

All:                          Laughs

Michael:               Yes, they can. They absolutely can. And they can learn more than one. Yeah. And the studies that we’ve done, we’ve found if you can learn one, you can learn another, the two language proficiencies were highly correlated of each other.

Jessica:                 I’ve always remembered that quote from if you could learn one language, you can learn another. And that’s sort of been one of the things that I’ve heard you say over and over again. And one of the things that has stuck, one of the many things that stuck with me. So yeah, the answer is yes.

Michael:               It’s a north star star.

Jessica:                 North star, yes.

Tatum:                  So kids with hearing loss can learn two or more languages. Has the field always felt this way? You kind of touched on that a little bit with your background.

Michael:               No the field has not felt this way. The general recommendation in the past was based on the thought that it’s already going to be hard enough for them to learn one language so why on earth would we tax their system that’s impaired by helping them learn another language? Back in the day they would, we didn’t have the technology that we have now, but even still, I don’t think that that would have been a reason not to do that. It was ideas that came from monolingual perspectives, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Tatum:                  So the field, obviously your perspective has changed. When Jessica and I were in grad school, this is just what we learned at our program, mostly from you, um, and some other professors. But is it widespread? Does everyone believe– Do you still run into professionals who have trouble believing that a kid with hearing loss can learn two languages?

Michael:               World-wide. Actually, yeah. Which was surprising to me. You know? I think though that when hearing loss is in the mix, it isn’t just something that happens, like it can naturally for a child that has normal hearing. The studies that you read where there was success, by success I mean either (A), their linguistic skills were better than a monolingual child with hearing loss or their linguistic skills were no different than a monolingual child. To me, that’s success. And in both of those groups of studies that we now have lots of, the one common thread or theme in them is that they had a plan, they had a plan, they had a structured, agreed upon plan in place. And, by structured, I don’t mean rigid, you know, because life isn’t rigid. And what’s interesting about it too is that by structured, I don’t mean rigid. And what I mean by that is that all of those kids that had success did it a different way from each other, you know, so, but there was a plan.

Tatum:                  We’re planning on getting into the plan.

All:                         Laughs.

Michael:               Okay.

Tatum:                  Sometimes I feel that I do run into other therapists that don’t always feel this way. I still run into families asking me, “someone told me, in this modern day and age that my kid can only learn English, that I should only speak English.” How do you respond to that?

Michael:               Yeah. That’s always hard because you don’t want to, you want to create community, right? And you wanna you wanna build a force around that family. And, and when, when there’s like a, a disagreement, then it’s, it’s challenging. Yeah. So, if there’s any opportunity to open the discussion, you know, and, and maybe get everyone in the same room or reconsider what evidence-informed practice is and that’s considering the needs and the wants and the desires of the family. And if you’re not doing that, you’re not providing best practice.

Jessica:                 It’s, that’s a hard conversation to have. I think sometimes logistically it’s hard to set up, but then it’s also a tricky situation to navigate because of the reasons you just said. But what– like the advantages are huge if, if the plan is to build a force around the family and in the words that you used, you have to do it. There’s no, other alternatives.

Michael:               Yeah. I think that certain phrases that have served me well in building bridges versus building walls have been, “would you be willing to,” “would you be willing to consider” Those opening phrases seem to open doors to build bridges more?

Jessica:                 Yeah, I like that. “Would you be willing,” that’s good. We’ll have to use that. So children with hearing loss can learn two or more languages. And I think you used the phrase earlier like that some people will say, why on earth would you introduce a second language into an impaired system? So why on earth would you, what are the benefits?

Michael:               There’s so many benefits (laughs), scientifically demonstrated and then socially there are benefits, right? So some of the scientific benefits are higher levels of cognition compared to monolingual children. A higher ability to introspect or look within to solve problems or take perspectives that are not your own–higher theory of mind. Socially they, mm. For me, my family is everything, I couldn’t imagine being disconnected from them. Yeah. So socially, super important. They need to be able to communicate with their family. They need to be able to participate in all of the things that they do outside of school, but then they also need to be able to communicate with school. And if they want to get a job in the United States, there’s a benefit of knowing English as well,

Jessica:                 Lots of benefits.

Michael:               Yeah. Yeah. Lots of benefits,

Tatum:                  I think I remember from one of the lectures that I’ve attended of yours. You were talking about like the language of the heart or the heart language. How does that kind of relate to benefits? What do you mean by that?

Michael:               I’ve heard bilingual mothers say things like, “Yes, of course I know English. I can speak to her in English, but it’s, it’s, it’s not how I connect with her. I connect with her in my home language, it’s the language of my heart.” And that’s where I got that from. Another mother told me one time, she’s like, I’m, uh, what’s the language in South Africa?

Tatum:                  Afrikaans?

Michael:               Afrikaans. Yeah. She’s like, “I’m funny in Afrikaans. I’m not funny in English.” You know, it’s her second language. Uh, or, or another mother told me one time, she goes, I can say “I love you,” but it’s not the same as “Te quiero.”

Jessica:                 I’m getting chills!

Michael:               (laughs)

Tatum:                  This is why we wanted to have you on so bad.

Everyone:           (laughs)

Tatum:                  I talked to families a lot about, even families that are bilingual, instead of just speaking only Spanish, it’s especially important when you only speak another language, but just that in the language that is their native language, they might be able to provide a better language model.

Michael:               Absolutely.

Tatum:                  It’s just so much more natural for them to use.

Michael:               Absolutely. It’s, I mean there’s really no magic wand that all of a sudden anyone could be able to speak another language if they don’t know it, you know, so being able to speak in the language they’re most comfortable is going to lay the strongest foundation. It’s going to allow them to make those inner relational connections and if they don’t, they can put learning at risk later. Yeah.

Tatum:                  I’m thinking about something that’s off topic. It’s just interesting, that theory of mind. I wonder if that comes from knowing when to code switch, like if that adds into theory of mind, but

Michael:               it could be, yeah, it could be a part of it because they realize that another person thinks differently than they do.

Tatum:                  Yeah, I think about that all the time.

Michael:               You know, we have studies right now, we have studies where the theory of mind for children with hearing loss is less of that than those have normal hearing and they can tell really early. Right. But ooh, wouldn’t it be interesting to find out what is the theory of mind of children who have hearing loss and were trained to speak in two languages compared to children with normal hearing, or is it any different? I don’t know. But theoretically it should be. Yeah.

Jessica:                 Yeah.

Tatum:                  That could be a new topic.

Jessica:                 We’ll have to have you and Landon on at the same time to theorize about this.

Tatum:                  Yeah, listeners should go back to season one where we had a discussion on theory of mind if you don’t know what it is. We sort of touched on this, but I think it’s important to just make sure that we don’t skim over anything. So there’s benefits to being bilingual. What are benefits specifically about learning your home language?

Michael:               Well, I would say staying connected with your family, um, and it can help you set a strong foundation for learning another language later. Right? Since we now know that if you can learn one, you can learn another. So, wow, why not start in the language where they’re going to be immersed in the most and where they can connect with their mother, who’s usually the first language teacher of any baby. And then once they show word learning, that’s all you need. So however they get there, I guess it doesn’t really matter. But for me, the most important thing was for a mother to never, ever, ever feel like she couldn’t communicate with her own child. (laughs) I didn’t need any other benefit, you know, I didn’t need any other benefit. And you know, some of these parents, they live in Spanish-speaking only neighborhoods. The kids that they’re going to be playing with in playgroups are only going to speak Spanish. There’s a huge opportunity for language learning for them in those situations. We’re not moving in with these families to teach these kids, we have to rely on their environment that they’re in to learn.

Jessica:                 So you mentioned this a little bit. Bilingual families often ask us, about, like should they introduce both languages at the same time? Which one should they introduce first? And you briefly mentioned this. Do you wanna expand on that a little bit?

Michael:               Yeah, yeah, sure, so this is really interesting because after my experiences, I’m not convinced that there’s one way is better than the other. They may have pros and cons and so it’s worth a discussion. There’s one way is simultaneous learning and this is where a child is learning two languages before the age of three. And they are perfectly capable of doing that. And that’s what we did with a lot of our children in Houston and in Vanderbilt. Or they can learn one language for the first three or four years of their life and learn a second one after that time period. And that’s called a sequential dual language learner. And they can absolutely become proficient in that. And the stronger their first language is in that process for learning two languages, the faster they’ll pick up the second language. I also think that you have to consider the type of family that you’re working with. Are you working with a bilingual family or are you working with a family that doesn’t know English at all. For bilingual families, we don’t have any mandates in the US for dual language learning. So it can become a choice for them. How proficient do they want their child to be? They might go for it in a certain way, when they want to do it, however, it doesn’t really matter. But for monolingual other language families that don’t speak English, their kid kind of has to know– it’s almost necessitated, right? Because they have to be able to speak with their family at home and then they have to be able to communicate with their teachers and friends at school and then work for later. So then the question becomes when and how. And I think it can be done simultaneously or sequentially. It just depends on what services they have in the area, what supports they have around them. The big picture, you know, my lesson that I got at the Center for looking at the clinic population kind of applies here. What is in your area, what kind of environment can support them. That was a thousand word answer.

Tatum:                  No I think it’s a big topic, which is why we wanted to touch on it. I feel, I’ve had some families who are bilingual and they choose to focus on their home language until preschool. I’ve had one family recently, even later they’re doing some homeschooling to kind of continue. Um, and they just feel so strongly that they really want that, their native home language to be really strong before adding in English because they are worried about– English is everywhere. So they’re trying to like preemptively combat how much English exposure the girl is going to get when she gets to school. Which I thought was interesting and part of me wanted to be like, no, we should introduce both, you know, both, we could start now, but I mean I think that’s a family choice and I think I had reached out to you in the past before, in my first year working and you were like there really is no one way or the other way, at least at the time you had said there is no clear research on which would be better.

Michael:               Right, right. Yeah. I mean there’s advantages to doing it early. The earlier you do it, the less of an accent you have in each language. The earlier you do it, you might have better, certain phonological awareness skills like rhyming, but those skills might just come later. The, the con of sequential language learning is you might have an accent in the second language. But the pro is that you have such a strong foundation that it can accelerate the learning of the second one.

Tatum:                  Yeah

Michael:               The hard part for us is in this Internet DoubleClick world, right. You know, where we want information instantly and things to happen instantly. We get, we can press a button and a car comes and picks us up, trusting the language process is hard. It takes time. Yeah. But I would like to add though, when it comes to when to introduce the other language is following, following the family. Let them be a part of that.

Tatum:                  Yeah. I think that is important to remember too. Cause my opinion isn’t necessarily going to fit with the family.

Michael:               Yeah. And you want to support them. I think that, the support that you give them and trusting the language process and having a plan will serve them really well.

Jessica:                 You talked a little bit about word learning and using that as sort of a marker. Do you want to expand on that a little bit?

Michael:               Well it just kind of goes back to if you can learn one language, you can learn another. So, as soon as we saw evidence of word learning, then we would try to immerse them in English as soon as possible. It could be expressions. We weren’t waiting for a certain number at all, just that there was a consistent indicator that yep they’re picking up words.

Jessica:                 I like that, that’s another north star I feel like.

Michael:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:                 Let’s look for that.

Michael:               Look for some indicators. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Tatum:                  Let’s segue into the next question. So from all the times we’ve heard you speak in the past, um, we can both remember one phrase that you repeat over and over. For children with hearing loss to learn two languages, both languages must be supported. So you’ve kind of hinted at this with your constant reiteration of needing a plan. Um, but what do you mean by both languages being supported?

Michael:               It’s kind of a simple concept that you could relate to playing sports or playing instruments, right? If you want to get good at playing baseball and soccer, you have to play it, you could read about it, you could watch it on TV, but you’re not going to get good at it doing it. So you have to do it. Same thing, flute, violin, whatever. So with that concept in mind, how does that show up for a child that needs to learn two languages? Well, they need opportunities to practice both. And so at the Center and at Vanderbilt we met as a team and we worked together and figured out how could we set that up for them? Who could we enlist in their lives that would help us with that? And what kind of support can we provide at a level that would send it into motion and what we came up with was intervention environments, you know, realizing, okay, we can’t move in with them. You know, we see them once a week, how are we going to impact them? We can provide a school for English and we can provide individual therapy. We can bring the parent in and have them actively participate. We can bring their family members in and have them actively participate. And then go from there, look out into the community. What’s out there for extra learning, are there heritage language programs, are there half day weekend programs, are there playgroups, churches, anything, you know, just exploring and finding, creating.

Jessica:                 I feel like we both have different quote Tatum and I both have different quotes that we’ve remembered of yours over the like different classes and workshops that you’ve held. And one of them that I always remember is, um, you might as well bloom where you’re planted.

Michael:               Oh, you remember that?

Jessica:                 I remember that. I don’t know why. I remember that, but I do. And so what you’re saying makes me think of that. It’, there’s not going to be a picture perfect solution everywhere you go for every family and all the languages. And so being really creative and working as a team to find those opportunities for those families  really makes a difference.

Michael:               Yeah. Yeah. I think when you focus on everything that you don’t have, then you end up with less. Right. And if you focus on everything that is there, there’s opportunity. T

Jessica:                 that stuck with me.

Tatum:                  Yeah. I like that. That did not stick with me!

Everyone:            (laughs)

Jessica:                 it must’ve been a rough week for me or something! Yes, I have to bloom, I have to bloom!

Tatum:                  I remember a lot of everything else you’ve said.

Michael:               Well, in full disclosure, I get a lot of my, some of my quotes from my mom, so yeah, she has, I kind of never know what she’s going to say sometimes.

Tatum:                  I’m thinking of a follow-up question for this. I don’t know if it’ll actually add more, but I’m going to go ahead and ask it just to see. So I think, uh, I think I get the most nervous about supporting the home language when the kid gets to school and everything is in English, often the therapist at school are working on their English skills and not their Spanish skills. How do you advise families and professionals to help make sure both languages are still being supported? So you mentioned language heritage programs. Can you go more into like other options?

Michael:               Yeah, I think like a multitude of efforts are, are going to be important. For sure, in-service with the staff and like helping them understand how long it takes to get a basic understanding of a new language when you only know a different one. Um, and then the amount of time it takes to get to the academic level that they’re right. And then I would suggest for administrators to have the staff trained on English as a second language techniques and what can be done, um, for that. Some of the heritage language programs, when they’re learning a second language after they already know one, if that first language is not maintained, it can negatively impact the learning of the second language. So it’s important to maintain it in some way, either at home or through a heritage language program. And if you Google that, you’ll find a directory that will show where they are in a variety of languages around North America. They have half day programs, full day programs, weekend programs. It would be no different than a child that had normal hearing coming to the mainstream that didn’t know English. What would they do then? The only thing different that they might do is check the equipment every morning to make sure they can hear in the classroom. So it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, um, and to realize that they don’t know in English what the other kids in the classroom know. So their expectations need to change and their observations of progress will be different from what they are with children that are fluent.

Tatum:                  This is probably it too big of a topic. Um, but as related to it a kid on my caseload right now, we could cut it maybe, but I wanted to ask you anyway, so do you know how about how long it should take for a kid who, who doesn’t have hearing lies, who was bilingual? They were coming into school, they’ve been exposed to English for the first time, like how long should it take them to be able to catch up in terms of academics if they’ve just been exposed to English upon entering school.

Michael:               There are two proficiency levels that we can observe. One is basic and then one is cognitive academic. The basic one can take up to two years and the cognitive academic one can take five to seven years and if it’s not supported, it can take up to 10 years. With that said, those are minimal expectations. Right? So they could absolutely accelerate that or blow that out of the water with the right support. And, and also depending on what the kid brings to the table, what the family brings to the table, all those multifactorial variables that come to play when language learning is happening. Yeah. Like the more gregarious the child is, the faster they’re going to go. It’s a long time. It’s a long time. You know you also think about our children who are not learning two languages and maybe we start with them in their infancy. Right. And it’s, and they don’t go to kindergarten until they’re five. They’re not ready for that kind of language until they’re five or having five years of listening. Right?

Tatum:                  Yeah. Yeah. So someone with a kid with hearing loss who is monolingual in English would still need time.

Michael:               Right.

Jessica:                 So we’ve been talking a lot about the sequential language learners. So they, they’re exposed to their home language, they’re taught in their home language, and then they go to school and they are exposed to English. For those simultaneous language learners. Talk us through a little bit about what that could look like. And I know there are lots of different ways it could look but do you want to talk about that?

Michael:               Yeah. You know, it’s interesting is that all the video documentation that we collected at the center and even some at Vanderbilt, it showed very similar patterns of bilingual development compared to children with normal hearing. There’s a little bit of a lag time in terms of when they really start talking compared to monolingual children. Because I think they’re having to just process two languages. Around the age of two they, uh, are what we call echolalic where they echo a lot. They imitate, parrot a lot of what people are saying. And then somewhere after the second year, there is some kind of explosion and they start to get the idea that other people speak other languages and they will only speak Spanish with mom and they won’t speak Spanish at school, but only English at school. And then somewhere around four or five, they’re able to talk about the differences between the languages. So you can use one to build the other. Yeah.

Jessica:                 So cool. Kids are amazing,

Michael:               Yeah and you know they do different things that are really interesting and they’re all different. So some children might speak English at first with Spanish syntax or they might combine the words together to make one word. So that’s important to study as well I think because if you don’t know what you’re looking at, you could misdiagnosis.

Tatum:                  Yeah that  could be a whole.. assessment of bilingual population could be another topic, which I know you would also be a really good to speak on.

Jessica:                 What does the language intervention plan look like for those kiddos or what could it look like?

Michael:               Uh, so what we did at Vanderbilt and at the Center for Hearing and Speech and we designed it at the Center for Hearing and Speech in Houston, Texas. It was individual therapy in Spanish with a cert AVT that her first language was Spanish. Prior to that it was a, a speech language therapy assistant. And so we would design the treatment plans, she would implement them in the language the family could understand once a week or twice a week, if they had an opening for that. And then so there was that and then they got assignments to do things at home. And, or to incorporate whatever they were doing into their daily routine. And then the rest of their time was spent in the school. So the deaf educators would take over the English. And then we just let their progress guide us on what to do. You know, if they were better at Spanish, not as good at English, then we might up the English a little bit and, and, but can, we never discouraged the home language. Some families were completely happy with just coming and learning English. They would say, we’ve got the Arabic, you don’t worry about the Arabic, we’re going to do Arabic at home. We’re here for English and to learn what to do. So, and those kids did really well too, you know. So,another one could be where a child has learned, maybe they are coming to Child’s Voice for the first five years of their life and then, or maybe three, three or five years. And then the parents were like, we’re going to do, Armenian school half day and we’re going to continue Child’s Voice for the second half of the day. We want to do that. That’s another way.

Tatum:                  What about like continuing the language plan at home? So I know there are, it’s probably not as rigid as these titles make it sound, but like one parent, one language; different times of the day; different weeks. How does that work if a family is bilingual? What they can do at home?

Michael:               Yeah, I think all of those are viable strategies. They just, they’re just needs to be thought put behind it, you know, because if, if dad’s on the plane all the time or mom’s on the plane all the time, one parent, one language doesn’t work right because they’re not ever there. Or time and place. I think those, where maybe they just use Spanish at the table during dinner or during the holidays or whenever we go to grandma’s or church. Those types of instances, maybe the family is perfectly comfortable with any level of proficiency in the home language. Right. Cause I think about some of my friends that I grew up with where their parents were fluent in Spanish and English, but they didn’t really push Spanish that hard for them. And so they’re not as proficient in Spanish as they are English.

Tatum:                  I have a lot of friends like that, growing up in San Antonio.

Michael:               Yeah. I have some friends that say I have better Spanish than they do and they’re, you know,

Tatum:                  I have friends who, their parents spoke Spanish and then they took Spanish in high school so they could then learn Spanish because their parents didn’t push it either. But not on the parent’s, systemic issues play into that. Definitely.

Michael:               Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s just another example of how different it can, it can always look, um, I don’t remember what the question was.

Tatum:                  Um, so you basically answered it.

Michael:               Oh, okay.

Tatum:                  Like using one so one defined for our listeners, just in case some of them are unaware, one parent, one language would be kind of what you said. Maybe mom speaks Spanish. Dad always speaks English with the kid. Time and place, certain times of days.

Michael:               Minority language at home is the other one where they just speak Spanish or Arabic at home. And then when they leave the home, they speak the other language. But if you’re like, if you’re a family from Miami, no, that’s not gonna work because when you leave the home, it’s a Spanish-speaking neighborhood, you know, so it all merits a discussion, you know, like there’s all these different ways you could do it. What speaks to you? What do you think will work for you? You know?

Tatum:                  I do think it does, sometimes working with families, I think it does help to have some kind of structure or else they end up not speaking one of the languages that they are trying to support both or, I just think it helps to have some kind of basic guiding thing, which you’ve talked about with the plan.

Michael:               Yeah, absolutely. The plan, you know, a great time to go over that plan is after you’ve done your assessment, you’ve collected all the information of what the child can do what the child needs to learn to do. And then, okay, now let’s talk about how we’re going to do this, you know?

Jessica:                 I think, did Landon create our language plan?

Tatum:                  It might’ve been from Michael?

Jessica:                 Okay.

Tatum:                  I think we have your language plan saved on–. I think you have some handouts that you can fill out,

Michael:               Yeah, from the book. Yeah.

Tatum:                  I’m pretty sure those are on our shared drive from when you were presented, I think you’ve spoken before at Child’s Voice or you’ve been here and some staff have gone to one of your presentations in the past.

Michael:               Yes.

Jessica:                 I think it just helps to have something written down. So if you don’t have the exact plan that we’re talking about, like this is our goal, this is how we’re going to try to reach it. We’re going to check in on this in six months and see how it’s going. So and so’s going to do this. So and so’s going to do this.

Michael:               Yeah. One of my colleagues at, at MED-EL, Judy Horvath, um, she’s our director of the engagement program and she has a really good analogy of we’re the guard rails, they’re moving along down the road on their path to spoken language and we’re the guard rails, you know, and so we’re just constantly there, you know, going with them. And then if we get off track then we just hit the, we just re-route, re route like a GPS system, you know,

Jessica:                 Oh I like that

Tatum:                  I like that a lot

Michael:               Yeah, it’s messy. It’s messy. (laugh)

Jessica:                 Yeah. I think as a speech therapist, I feel like a lot of me and a lot of my friends are sort of Type A in that like we like structure. I don’t know if that’s true for everyone, but most of the speech therapists that I’ve interacted with like–

Tatum:                  Definitely on our staff here, definitely all similar personality types.

Jessica:                 Yeah and so I think that’s a good reminder that things are messy sometimes.

Michael:               Yeah. Things are messy, Let it be. What kind of possibilities would open up for that family if you just dealt with what they’re bringing?

Tatum:                  Yeah, yeah, yes.

Jessica:                 We want to talk about challenges next. And challenges are different for families who are bilingual versus families who are monolingual other, meaning they don’t speak English. So let’s start with bilingual families. What challenges do you see them facing?

Michael:               Well, um, in my experience I’ve seen time be a challenge for them. I’ve seen resistance from other professionals be a challenge for them. And so, I mean, I’ve even had one mom say to me and she said, “well, our audiologist said that we could, we could, we should only speak English. We should not speak Spanish to our child.” And I said, “well, how do you feel about that?” And she said, “yeah, we’re not going to do that.” I hated that for her and her audiologist because what did that cost? That costed an open and honest relationship. Right. And, and how’s that going to help the child? So, another challenge might be finding, finding opportunities for practice. We are in an English speaking world, it’s not the only language we speak here, but structuring their day when they are trying to manage life that’s going to give their child opportunities to practice both.

Jessica:                 I imagine that it would be hard to feel like the whole world is offering you English and you’re the one person offering your child this other language, even if you’re able to, I mean that’s the same for monolingual families and for bilingual that it’s like your responsibility. I don’t know. I feel like that would be hard.

Michael:               Yeah. Yeah. I think we have to put ourselves in their shoes and that’s a really good start imagining what it would be like for them.

Jessica:                 Yeah.

Tatum:                  A challenge, I see this is very specific, but some of my families run into is when they want their child to be bilingual but the second language, only one of the parents speak it or only one inside of the family speaks it. Um, and especially when it’s, for these families, it’s so easy to get the English in right. It’s hard to remember to get the other language in and I know, but the other language is important for so many reasons culturally. Um, the, the h– language of the heart, like you’re talking about. I see families struggling with that.

Michael:               You know, one, there’s a great resource, it’s one of my favorite ones online called languagelizard.com. And you can order any book that you have ever seen in English and one in 40 different languages. And so starting with something like that can can help them. And then once they start seeing results, then you start seeing more activity.

Jessica:                 That’s true.

Michael:               They could read it in one language and then they can switch and read it in the other, you know, there’s nothing wrong with what my colleague, Amy McConkey Robbins says is tag team it, there’s no, you can tag team in the same five minutes back and forth between two languages and it doesn’t negatively impact learning or confuse the child. Yeah. I think the other idea too is for like when it comes to challenges is to differentiate the difference between the reality of the situation and whatever myth that we’re putting into the reality that actually destroys that. And just asking ourselves, wait, am I creating a story here or does this have anything to do with what needs to happen?

Jessica:                 This is tangential, do you know who Brene Brown is?

Michael:               Oh, I do, yeah.

Jessica:                 Brene Brown talks about stories that we create for ourselves. Do you know Tatum?

Tatum:                  Yeah.

Jessica:                 I love that. Just made me think of that. It’s like being really cognizant of the stories that we’re creating, whether it’s about bilingualism or anything else.

Michael:               Right, are we being hypothetical right now or is this real?

Jessica:                 So do you want to ask about monolingual other Tatum?

Tatum:                  Sure. So you’ve touched on challenges that bilingual families face. What about those families who only speak another language that isn’t English? So families who only speak Spanish, only speak Arabic?

Michael:               Yeah, I mean, they’re, I just imagined myself going somewhere like Mongolia and trying to get services if my, if I had a child that was deaf, you know, and there wasn’t any opportunities for them for me to get what I needed to know in the language that I understood. So that’s a challenge. And them feeling supported by professionals that, um, don’t have issues with them learning another language. You don’t know English? Okay, no problem. Let’s figure this out. They are going to feel a little better than those that don’t have as sensitive as a clinician. I think it’s going to be impossible. We will never see the same number of speech therapists, deaf educators, audiologists to represent the hundreds of different languages that there are being spoken here. So that’s a challenge for them. I think what they need are therapists who are willing to be curious and to just be a “yes” for those families and find out what they’re capable of.

Jessica:                 Tatum posted a video on Instagram like a couple of weeks ago of her and her husband singing a song in Spanish together. It was so cute

Tatum:                  Oh my gosh, I’m so bad at it.

Jessica:                 And it inspired me. I mean I don’t think I currently work with any Spanish speaking families, so it’s a nice reminder that songs exist, like that songs in other languages exist and to explore those and to be curious. And I’ve like printed out little pictures with like Polish words, just like Polish words on there. The mom was so excited.

Everyone:           (laughs)

Jessica:                 I think just feeling like you thought about their needs at another level than your needs.

Tatum:                  And you mentioned feeling like having therapists who will feel like be willing to be curious, but I think also willing to be embarrassed. So I only until recently, admittedly I’ve only started recently singing songs in Spanish with my families because my Spanish isn’t good. I’m super embarrassed by my accent. I don’t know enough. Um, I mean we obviously work with interpreters for listeners, we have that material here at Child’s Voice. Like we have it on our shared drive, there are Spanish lyrics, there are Spanish song cards. And I’m always like, I’m going to do it. And then I get scared because like, what if the interpreter doesn’t know the song or what if the family doesn’t know this song. And then I’m going to be the one leading it in Spanish.

Michael:               Tthat’s a big story you’ve got going on. (laughs) They probably love every second.

Tatum:                  Even, it was just in the last couple of months that I’ve started doing it. And, and they do. It’s almost, I feel we go in there and we’re the expert in hearing loss and language and speech, well hopefully, and sometimes I feel like families are intimidated and I, it’s almost nice to be the one who is being embarrassed and who doesn’t know cause I think the families appreciate that there there’s something that they can teach me and I’m the one who’s fumbling through something. Um, but yes, I, we just started, we actually started, uh, one of our toddler groups has two Spanish-speaking kids in it. And at the end of group we sing songs and we’ve always done English songs. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about this before, but I’m like the English kids can listen to the Spanish songs. So we started doing the Spanish songs.

Michael:               You know, we did one thing once. We, once we realize the benefits that the children were getting from being bilingual then, Daniella at the time, who was the, the speech therapist doing the intervention, she thought it would be really exciting to do like a lunchtime Spanish session with all the kids in the school. And so that was really fun. They learned some new words in Spanish and then it gave the Spanish-speaking kids an opportunity to really like, “Hey, I, I know those words, you know?” And so it was really social-emotionally empowering for them it appeared.

Tatum:                  That’ such a good idea. I’m glad it inspired somebody.

Jessica:                 It Inspired me, it inspired me.

Tatum:                  Probably not my singing voice, but…

Everyone:            (laughs)

Jessica:                 Moving onto a little bit of a different topic. Is there ever a time when introducing a second language is not appropriate?

Michael:               I can’t really think of a time where it would be not appropriate. If a child comes in to the US, let’s say from Saudi Arabia and she only knows Arabic and she’s fluent in Arabic, but they’re going to stay in the US so yeah, she needs to learn English. But I think this this question might come into play as to who’s serving this person, right? Like a speech-language pathologist is someone who works with someone who has a deficit in speech and language. But when you are proficient in one language but not the other, there is no deficit. It’s just a proficiency issue. And so in those cases it might be more wise to refer them to someone who is trained in working in English as a second language. There are also children that have multiple disabilities, right. Where learning one language might be impossible or difficult. But I go back to the studies that we used to help develop our program where we looked at children with language disorders that were bilingual compared to monolingual and they were therapy studies and they did just as well in their progress as the monolingual children with language disorders. You know, I think about those children that have Down Syndrome that are from Spanish-speaking families and they learn Spanish and English and how that lands or how it comes out, um, it might vary greatly between all of them, but what’s important? They can communicate with their family and they can communicate with the other environment that they’re in at whatever level is appropriate. Yeah.

Jessica:                 I think a lot of times as speech-language pathologists, we think that the goal is fluent whatever language.

Michael:               Sure, yeah, I would recommend staying away from those types of, I call them bombtastic visionary statements. Cause really we should just let progress guide us, we should just base our decisions off of progress. So if spoken language is going to be the goal, right. Whatever language that is, and they have hearing loss, that hearing loss has to be enhanced to a level that’s going to allow that to occur. It would not be appropriate to expect a child to learn to speak who has a profound hearing loss and no amplification. And our goal is Spanish and English for them. That’s, that’s not appropriate. And it’s certainly appropriate if a child has a cochlear implant, got fit early, their parents only know sign language, but the rest of their family knows spoken English. There’s also a time for them to learn another language. It may not be a spoken language, but it’s a manual language. As long as both are supported and they have opportunities to practice in each.

Tatum:                  Great answer. We’ve touched on this a little bit when I was asking about academic skills in school, but what does progress look like in kids with hearing loss who are learning two or more languages?

Michael:               So there’s, um, many of them can take the same trajectory as a child with normal hearing and is bilingual if they’re simultaneous learners, they’ll, they can be proficient in both languages by the age of four. All the stars kind of align for them. Another group of children might, you know, if you think about it, hearing develops in the womb around 28, 25 or 28 weeks. And so if they, if they are born with profound hearing loss there already delayed, right? And then they get their implant around 12 months and they’re even further delayed. So those children’s start delayed and they demonstrate closing the gap somewhere around four or five years of age. So there’s that group. And then the third group is the group that I was trained on or was my experience. Back then, implants weren’t approved for children until they were two. And so it was more common for them to be implanted by the time they were three and not really start talking until they were four or five. Those kids would make a month of progress for every month of therapy and we saw them until they were 18 or 19 years old. I think those three groups you can, you can consider looking for those indicators when you’re looking at their progress annually. Either a month, a month of progress for every month of therapy, steady rates of development, like normal hearing children. Or you’ll see this pattern if a gap that’s closing over a four or five year period. I have to say though, it’s all about exposure and practice, you know? And so if that however that scale looks, it will impact the outcome.

Tatum:                  We have also touched on this a little bit, but kind of shifting into a new or a different area, side of this conversation. There are not very many bilingual therapists out there in the speech language pathology world, Deaf Ed world, audiologists,

Michael:               Four percent of ASHA therapists are registered as bilingual.

Tatum:                  And for our listeners, ASHA is the governing body for speech-language pathologists and audiologists here in America, or one of them for audiologists butour governing body. So what do we do about that? So we’re seeing kids who speak another language, their family speaks another language. What can a monolingual English-speaking therapist do?

Michael:               A few things, so the main theme is you have to compensate, right? Because you don’t have the staff to do it, so you have to compensate. And I’m going to quote met at Jane Madell, it’s simple. Figure it out. So, um

Jessica:                 It’s mind blowing!

Everyone:            (laughs)

Michael:               Right? so you just gotta figure it out. But no, there are, there are ways that are written. Amy McConkey Robbins has for bilingual families, you can do what’s called a tag team approach where the therapist demonstrates, the activity and does it in English and then the parent follows suit in their home language. Or if the family knows English, you can work with them in English in therapy. They implement everything at home in the other language. But your question was for monolingual families I think where they only speak another language, right? What do we do? Yeah, so you’d have to compensate as well. And you can use the same approach. You can use a tag team approach with them. If the family members can read, you can use written materials as the interpreter, demonstrate the activity and then they follow suit in the other language. And you really don’t even have to know what they’re saying. What you can look for are indicators of a successful interaction, you know, and, and observe what’s going on. Transcribe what they’re saying or record what they’re saying. So you can find someone that could interpret that for you, which leads me to the other option, which would be use of interpreters. If there’s budget allowance for that in the organization, working with an interpreter or through an interpreter is a great way to compensate.

Tatum:                  We are fortunate in Illinois, Early Intervention covers interpreters, so

Michael:               Awesome.

Tatum:                  And then we also have some at Child’s Voice as well.

Michael:               And know that that will be a messy approach because it won’t be as clear to you how well the child is progressing. But if you can get indicators or you find out from the parent report through the interpreter that the child has learned words and they’re using words, then you know, your next course of action.

Jessica:                 It’s going to be messy. It’s okay. I tell myself that everyday.

Michael:               It’s going to be messy. Yeah. It’s messy.

Jessica:                 Life is messy. It’s okay.

Tatum:                  Figure it out, Jessica.

Everyone:            (laughs)

Tatum:                  Okay. So we’ve gotten into this a little bit throughout, but is there anything else that you feel like you want to share about how the Center for Hearing and speech in Houston has worked with families who are bilingual and monolingual other speaking?

Michael:               I think I’ve covered everything. We did two studies there, one that just compared them to English speaking kids and then we did another one where that had hearing loss. And then we did another one where we compared the children who got dual language intervention to those who did not get dual language intervention. And then it turned out that the dual language intervention accelerated their progress times two. And so once we figured that out, it’s now mandated that they have the dual language intervention especially.

Tatum:  At the Center for Hearing and Speech?

Michael:               Yeah. Especially if they’re from a monolingual family. Yeah. And as long as they have the support staff for it. So, they feel pretty strongly about it. Now, I don’t know if I’m out, if I’m, if I’m saying all of this correctly, like Amy might say, well that’s not exactly it, but, she has seen herself the benefits and she, I know she supports, supports the families in a very similar way. I could add too that they surrounded them with intervention. You know, they have Spanish speaking audiologists. They have, they had Spanish speaking social worker, family counselor that provided groups for the families. And the individual speech therapy, they even had teaching assistants that spoke Spanish so that they could help translate if the child said something in Spanish in the classroom and the teacher could transfer it over. It’s an incredible group and if anybody ever has a chance to go see them, they should go visit. It’s really great.

Tatum:                  I don’t know why I’ve never visited when I’ve been in Houston, but I should.

Michael:               yeah, I think they’re moving into a new building.

Tatum:                  I saw that on their Facebook. It seems like they are in a transitionary period.

Michael:               Yes, they’re growing,

Jessica:                 Okay. Michael, we are going to wrap up after this last question. So this is your last one. Do you have any advice or resources on this topic that you would like to share with parents, families, professionals, anyone?

Michael:               Yeah, sure. I’m going to shamelessly plug a book that I’ve written.

Jessica:                 Plug it.

Michael:               It’s called Dual Language Learning for Children with Hearing Loss and Med-El published it. It’s available on www.medel-bridge.com. I don’t receive any royalties for it. It is $20. And then there’s also the languagelizard.com resource, which is really great. And, other organizations that are in this similar field, like John Tracy Clinic, Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children, they also have resources that are worth checking out. And then, you know, cochlear implant companies like Med-El, we manufacture out of Innsbruck, Austria and we distribute to over 118 countries. So we have materials and resources in over 40 different languages. So given enough leeway time, we might be able to find something that would work for families if you need to use that resource as an interpreter. And same for the other manufacturing companies. So, and then I would encourage anyone who’s interested or who is skeptical to dive into the literature. There is a lot that really demonstrates the possibilities for these children and their families. And I hope that they will do that. They can also contact me at any time. michael.douglas@medel.com.

Tatum:                  So we will also link all of that in our show notes as well.

Jessica:                 Okay Michael, thank you so much for joining us. We will let our listeners know where they can find you and then we’ll talk about where they can find us next. But we just wanted to take a moment to say thank you.

Michael:               Thank you. My pleasure.

Tatum:                  Thank you so much. It’s always amazing to hear you speak and it’s been really fun interviewing you, so

Michael:               Thank you.

Jessica:                 So our listeners, we would love to hear your reactions from today’s episode. You can email us at podcast@childsvoice.org and you can find episode show notes and archived episodes at our child’s voice website, childsvoice.org/podcast

Tatum:                  Yes, be sure to let us know your thoughts on the topic today and stay tuned for next week. We will be talking with Elsa Auerbach. Elsa is a Teacher of the Deaf at Child’s Voice and she has been teaching children with hearing loss since 1963 so we will be speaking with her about the changes the hearing loss field has experienced over the last 60 years. So it should be a good episode.

Jessica:                 Thank you for joining us for another episode of All Ears at Child’s Voice. Be sure to join us for our next episode. We release them every other week on Wednesdays.

Tatum:                  Yes. And as always, they are still available on Apple podcasts, Google play, stitcher…

Jessica:                 Soundcloud

Tatum:                  Soundcloud. And we also wanted to announce that they’re now officially available on TuneIn and Amazon Alexa.

Jessica:                 Yeah so just ask your Alexa, play All Ears at Child’s Voice: A Hearing Loss Podcast and it will come up, very exciting.

Tatum:                  So you can find us on Twitter and Instagram. I’m at @TatumFritzSLP and Jessica is @JessicaBrockSLP

Jessica:                 And if you’re interested in learning more about Child’s Voice, we’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with the handle @childs_voice. No apostrophe.

Tatum:                  Special thanks to John McCortney for recording and editing this episode.

Tatum:                  We’ll see you next time.

Tatum & Jessica: Bye

Michael:               Bye.

CV Students:      BYE THANKS FOR LISTENING!