The Hearing Matters Podcast discusses hearing technology (more commonly known as hearing aids), best practices, and a growing national epidemic - Hearing Loss. The show is hosted by father and son, Blaise Delfino, M.S. – HIS, and Dr. Gregory Delfino, Au.D., CCC-A, who treat patients at Audiology Services in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and East Stroudsburg, PA.
On this episode, Blaise Delfino talks with Marybeth Lauderdale, chief engagement and collaboration officer at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf (WPSD) in Pittsburgh.
A Focus on Children
Marybeth knew from the time she was in junior high school that she wanted to be a teacher. She talked to her history teacher, who had a deaf daughter, and she suggested Marybeth teach the deaf. She decided to do exactly that. She taught for many years and has been in her current position for two years. She works with the faculty and students’ parents on programs at the school in Pittsburgh and throughout the state. She came from Illinois, where she was the superintendent of the School for the Deaf and Visually Impaired there.
A Varied Day
Marybeth loves working with children because it’s so varied. About 25 percent of the students have cochlear implants, so there is a continuum of communication modes at the school. Along with American Sign Language, the school also may use spoken English or a combination of the two.
Students of all Ages
There are children at WPSD as young as 5, and there are residential students, who come to school on Monday morning and leave on Friday at noon. Marybeth works with the staff to ensure the acoustics in the classroom are the best to optimize students’ residual hearing. There are five speech and language pathologists, an audiologist, psychologists, and counselors. Together they work on American Sign Language, speech, and audition to maximize every type of communication there is. During COVID, students learned via Zoom. Often the parents would sit in on the Zoom classes as well. The school use spoken English, sign language and captioning to teach during that time.
Only about five percent of the students’ have deaf parents. The rest have hearing parents, which is a unique situation. Often the deaf child is the parents’ first baby. These parents, who are usually shocked and upset, take time to grieve. They have experienced a loss. But they are told that getting intervention for their child as soon as possible will be invaluable. Parents are also strongly encouraged to learn sign language, and to include the child in family activities as a participant, not as an observer.
Plans for Every Student
WPSD has a Zero to Three-Years Old program. Every baby has a Family Service Plan, and every student has an Individual Education Plan (IEP) that sets up goals. There is also a transition program for high school students to help them transition into the working world. A team works with them on soft skills, work skills and academic skills. Students go to work placements while they’re in school. Eventually they go to college, get jobs and live lives like everyone else. Schools like WPSD help deaf and hard of hearing people achieve all their goals, even with hearing loss.
You're tuned into the Hearing Matters Podcast with Dr. Gregory Delfino, and Blaise Delfino of Audiology Services and Fader Plugs. The show that discusses hearing technology, best practices, and a growing national epidemic: hearing loss. Before we kick this episode off, a special thank you to our partners Oticon, life changing technology, Sonic, every day sounds better, Starkey Hearing Technologies hear better, live better, Redux, faster, dryer smarter, verified. On this episode. We are so excited to welcome Mary Beth Lauderdale from the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Pittsburgh. Mary Beth, welcome to the Hearing Matters Podcast!
Marybeth Lauderdale:
Thank you very much.
Blaise Delfino:
First of all, thank you so much for all that you do for the communication sciences and disorders field, truly. Now what inspired you to pursue a career in communication sciences?
Marybeth Lauderdale:
Junior high teacher, History teacher had a daughter who was deaf. And I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. So I talked to my history teacher and she said, why don't you teach the Deaf? And I said, I will do that. That was many years ago and now I'm the chief engagement and collaboration officer. And I've done that for the past two years. And that is for the programs of Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf and we have programs all throughout the state.
Blaise Delfino:
So how long have you been with the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in its entirety?
Marybeth Lauderdale:
Nine years, I've been here for nine years. I came here from Illinois, where I was the superintendent for the School for the Deaf and the school for the visually impaired.
Blaise Delfino:
Overall, your experience now living in Pittsburgh, assisting individuals on the road to better hearing, what do you like most about working with the children who are deaf or hard of hearing? And what do you like most about working with children who have cochlear implants.
Marybeth Lauderdale:
What I like most about just working with children in general is that it's varied. Now in my current role, I work more with staff who work with children who have hearing loss, about 25% of our students also have cochlear implants. So we have a continuum of communication methods modes, as well as language we use American Sign Language, and we may use American Sign Language in its entirety, we may go to spoken English. So we have a continuum of educational and communication practices here.
Blaise Delfino:
So Mary Beth, working with the staff at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, and instilling in them the everyday importance of their role. What are some things that you do with the staff? What do you hope to carry over that then translates through the staff while working with some of the students at your school?
Marybeth Lauderdale:
Working with the staff and with the students. We also have a residential program. So we have students as young as five years old, and our residents in our dorms, they come in on Sundays and then leave on Fridays at noon. So we work with the staff on all educational and communication practices. We try to have very good acoustics in the classrooms so that they can optimize their residual hearing. We have five speech and language pathologists on the campus here in Pittsburgh. And then we have them in our other satellite schools as well. We have one audiologist and we have a part time audiologist opening if you know of anyone who would like to work at Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. We also have some teacher vacancies. So just a little plug there. As I said, it's a continuum. So we're working with American Sign Language, we're working with speech, we're working with audition, we're trying to maximize every kind of communication there is about 5% of our students, deaf people in general, have deaf parents. So all the rest have hearing parents, which is a unique situation, because many times that deaf or hard of hearing child is the first one that parents have met when they have the baby. So we have a lot cut out for us. We start with early intervention. So we have a Zero to Three program that has about 100 students or babies in it and their families. So we try to get to them as soon as we can to start all of those educational processes and communication processes. Every baby has a family service plan. Every one of our students has an individual education plan, an IEP. So we work in that way with the goals. We work with the families of all of our children, so the staff work with the children plus they work with the families communicate with them.
Blaise Delfino:
Mary Beth, there are so many questions that just arose. First and foremost, you had mentioned ensuring that classroom acoustics are essentially for lack of a better word primate, and they're first class. Of course, with the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic, things started to go virtual. And talking over a zoom call can be very difficult because the quality isn't there. What were some of your acoustic strategies or your acoustic responses when the COVID 19 pandemic occurred?
Marybeth Lauderdale:
We went virtual. Now luckily, we had a one to one correspondence technologically. So our students have Chromebooks. So they, they had those, we worked even more with our parents because the parents would make times be on Zoom calls with their children, headphones were one thing if students use their hearing, or Bluetooth, and to write into their hearing aids or cochlear implants. We also use sign language and then captioning but you know, automatically generated captioning sometimes is not not perfectly a little law, so you can't really depend on it. But still, it helped because it's reading it's written language.
Blaise Delfino:
Marybeth, you had mentioned too, that you are heavily involved with the parents of the students. We recently interviewed Maryann Stefko from the Scranton School for the Deaf. When we talk about carryover, especially at home, what does that look like with your students because understanding that the majority of your students do have hearing parents. So this can be quite a win win. Of course, parents have their children and it's a disgust with them that their child does have a hearing loss that can of course, be a shock, right? So I'm curious to know what your interaction is like with these parents, and what carryover is like at home?
Marybeth Lauderdale:
Well, I would say especially with the young parent, they, the parents of young children, when they first find out their baby is deaf, or hard of hearing, that's not the baby they ordered. So but then again, how many of us did get the baby we ordered? I hear your dad laughing in the background. So we do have there is that. So I would say the very first thing is grieve, work through that. And then as soon as you can get early intervention services, that's paramount. I would also typically say with any baby, deaf or hearing, to learn sign language, because it just makes your brain more plastic, it, it just helps. There's all kinds of research with hearing babies. It does not make you not able to talk just from learning sign language, I would say just always include your child in your family activities, not just as an observer, but as a participant in active participant make sure that they have access to language, sign language spoken language. One more thing with the American Sign Language when children have cochlear implants, and they take them off. They're completely deaf. So American Sign Language is it never hurts, it always helps.
Blaise Delfino:
For those tuned in right now, and if you have an infant, whether they're six months or eight months, we would definitely encourage you to start to use baby sign language with your child because it gives them access and allows them to to ask for more milk or if they're hungry, really important because it gives them access to language at such an early age. Mary Beth, you had mentioned you have a team of speech language pathologists, audiologists, psychologists, how essential is your team to the student's academic journey and preparing them for college and beyond because nowadays, your students have access with regard to the influence of technology, which is incredible.
Marybeth Lauderdale:
The team is unbelievably important. The SLP, speech and language pathologists, the audiologists, the psychologists that you mentioned, we have counselors as well. And then you talk about entering the world of work after the educational journey. All of those people have input as well as the teachers and the administrators and the parents who are the most important member of the team in the IEP. So from the time I said it's a family service plan when they're babies and then it becomes an IEP when their school age. So they have that plan and they start with the communication plan. for the student to talk about what languages they use, and also what communication modes they use. And it doesn't just have to be one, as I've said, it's a continuum. So all of those people are very important in developing that plan and carrying it through their entire educational journey into high school, we also have a transition program. And so that's for transition to the world of work from that IEP. The transition team works on soft skills, work skills, coupled with academic skills from the teachers, and then our students actually go to work placements while they're in school. And we have a very robust transition program. So then they go to college, they get a job, they pay taxes, it's a great thing.
Blaise Delfino:
Surely it really is incredible, because even if you think back to 60, 70, 80 years ago, times are different nowadays, individuals who present with hearing loss who are hard of hearing or deaf, can now have the same opportunities of those who do present with normal hearing, in part due to your team aspect and your amazing establishment and like establishments around the country and around the world, to say, yes, I do have a hearing loss or I am deaf. But that doesn't define me, I can still accomplish, what I want to set my mind to. And thank you for all that you're doing for the field and all of your staff because truly, I don't think we can thank them enough. We want to make sure that you're thanked and your team is thanked because attitude of gratitude is so important, especially because you're working with, you know, the future of tomorrow, which is truly incredible. Marybeth, for parents who are raising a child or children who are deaf or hard of hearing, what advice would you give them?
Marybeth Lauderdale:
I told you that the very first thing that if they're hearing and they're upset that they have a deaf or hard of hearing child to go ahead and grieve, work through that, and then get the early intervention services, also learned sign language, because it will never hurt. Include your child in everything as a participant, not as an observer and just treat your child like any other child.
Blaise Delfino:
When you talk about the grieving process. When you're told that your child has a hearing loss, would you recommend reaching out to any local audiologist or speech language pathologists? Or are there are their support groups maybe that parents can reach out to to join to assist with that grieving process?
Marybeth Lauderdale:
Oh, definitely. That's the early intervention program. You could contact they could contact our schools they could contact Octo with which is a statewide agency for early intervention. They could contact the Office of deaf and hard of hearing ODHH which is a state wide agency.
Blaise Delfino:
So they have they have a lot of opportunity to join different support groups and Mary Beth what we're going to do and we make sure in the show notes provide some resources for parents who are going through that grieving process. Mary Beth, we want to thank you so much for joining myself and Dr. Delfino on the Hearing Matters Podcast. Again for those tuned in, we had Mary Beth Lauderdale from the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. You're tuned into the Hearing Matters Podcast with Dr. Gregory Delfino, and Blaise Delfino of Audiology Services and Fader Plugs. Until next time, hear life's story.