By Neyeah Watson

Beginning at age 4, I had ear pain that caused recurrent infections. My mother, worried, took me to multiple ear specialists, the fourth of whom warned these infections could result in a conductive hearing loss. At 7, I underwent a successful corrective ear surgery that eliminated my infections almost entirely. Though my hearing has been salvaged, I still endure frequent sinus infections and ear pain that require monitoring.

My personal experience makes me grateful Hearing Health Foundation (HHF) has long been a vocal advocate for early intervention for babies and children with hearing loss. HHF’s primary focus is on advancing hearing loss research to find new treatments, and I look forward to what will one day be medically possible for my aunt and grandmother who live with bilateral moderate sensorineural hearing loss. 

Because affordable direct patient services are needed to put HHF’s research findings into practice, I’m also greatly appreciative of organizations like The Sound Start Babies Foundation for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children, a New Jersey nonprofit that exists to support families of babies with hearing loss during the most critical years of brain development. Public funding in the state covers only about one third of the costs needed for early intervention, and The Sound Start Babies Foundation goal is for all families to have access to this quality of care, regardless of their ability to pay.

The Sound Start Babies Foundation was founded as Lake Drive Foundation in 1997 by community volunteers and parents of children with hearing loss in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. Inspired by the foundation’s history and mission, I was eager to interview a few representatives from the organization, Jessica Griffin and Kayley Mayer, who make this work possible.

Griffin, who is President, discovered Sound Start Babies™️ when her son, Ian, was born profoundly deaf. Sound Start Babies™️ was Ian’s early intervention provider and greatly helped her family through his hearing loss journey, which included his cochlear implantation at 10 months. In gratitude, Griffin joined the volunteer Board of Trustees in 2014 and was appointed President after two years of service.

Kayley Mayer is a Teacher of the Deaf and Program Coordinator. She began working for the Sound Start Babies™️ program in 2010, the first year the full-day, inclusive nursery program opened up. For her first eight years, she taught in a nursery classroom and provided home-based services for children with hearing loss and their families. Now, she is teaching in the classroom, providing family training to families, and  working on programming development. Although Mayer, unlike Griffin, does not have a personal connection to hearing loss, she finds fulfillment in the progress that families gain in their short time with program.

Griffin attributes members of the Sound Start Babies™️ staff, like Mayer, with her son’s preparedness for mainstream kindergarten this fall at age 6. Her goal as President is to make sure that every child who has a hearing loss has the same wonderful experience as her son. As Mayer notes, each impactful experience is unique. “Every family is at a different point when we meet them, but by the time the child and family graduate from our program, they are truly ready to take on the world,” Mayer says.

We are all fortunate for resources like Sound Start Babies™️ that help children who need hearing loss intervention succeed developmentally. Hearing is a precious gift, and I learned at age 7 that your hearing can be stripped from you without notice. I am grateful my doctors and parents acted promptly to ensure my hearing was preserved, making sure I, too, could be ready to take on the world.

HHF marketing and communications intern Neyeah Watson studies communications at Brooklyn College. For more information about Sound Start Babies™️ and The Sound Start Babies Foundation for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children, see www.soundstartbabies.com.