Families of Children with Hearing Loss Explore Educational Law, Advocacy and Support

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man holding baby On April 6, 2019, 16 families of children with hearing loss gathered at the CHOP Buerger Center for Advanced Pediatric Care for the second annual Center for Childhood Communication (CCC) Family Workshop: Exploring Educational Law, Advocacy & Support.

Parents and caregivers of children with hearing loss heard from experts in educational law and advocacy. They learned the difference between Individualized Educational Plans (IEP) and 504 Plans and participated in an activity to create an organizational system for participating in the Individualized Educational Plan/504 Plan process.

While parents/caregivers were participating in this session, children with hearing loss and their siblings were joined by CHOP audiologists to play games and work on arts and crafts activities. Families also heard from two CHOP employees about their experiences growing up with hearing loss — Derek Schwartz from Information Systems and Nate Diogo from CORE Lab Services.

“Connecting families with the information and resources they need to support academic success is an important part of our mission,” said Carol Knightly, AuD, CCC-A, Senior Director, Center for Childhood Communication and Center for Rehabilitation at CHOP. “This workshop is one of a series that the CCC holds throughout each year to bring families of children with hearing loss together around important topics related to optimizing their children’s development.”

Based on feedback from parents who attended the workshop, a second education-focused workshop is planned for fall 2019. This workshop will provide parents/caregivers with the opportunity to participate in small-group discussions addressing advanced topics, including educational plan management, preparing for transitions between school settings, and accessing community resources.

For more information about the CCC Family Workshop series and other programming provided by the CCC, please visit chop.edu/cccevents.