Helping the children who cannot hear
Seeking to make a global impact, Utah State University graduate students are attempting to raise money to spend a month in Vietnam assisting children with hearing loss.
Janet Fuller is a teacher at Sound Beginnings Preschool, located on USU’s campus. Fuller teaches children that are deaf and hard of hearing and has become the link between USU and the work The Global Foundation has sought to do in countries around the world.
Fuller traveled with the foundation to Vietnam during the summer of 2010 to help train 90 teachers from around the country about teaching children with hearing loss. Fuller then returned and sparked interest among students and faculty in the graduate studies program in auditory learning and spoken language at USU.
Graduate students Jeanette Smoot, Jane Fenton, Liz Hankins and Kate Powell are setting their summer sights on Vietnam along with Dr. Lauri Nelson. Each add to a variety of services they have to offer. Smoot and Fenton are studying speech language pathology, Hankins is studying audiology and Powell is in deaf education. Fuller said their help, along with the nation’s top experts, will change lives in Vietnam.
“Thus far, I’ve had the opportunity to apply my knowledge in several practicum settings and loved all of the kids and families I worked with. Now, I have a chance to do essentially the same thing an ocean away,” Smoot said.
Smoot also said it will be exciting to work with top experts in her chosen field and is looking forward towards helping teachers and parents of children with hearing loss reach their full potential.
“I’m proud to be an Aggie and excited to apply what I’ve learned at USU to make an impact half way around the world,” she said.
In regards to teachers, Fuller said, “They definitely want to learn. They definitely want help.”
The only factor preventing the trip is the cost. Currently, the students are putting together fundraisers to help them achieve their goal of $15,000.
According to their student-run blog, http://aggiesgoglobal.blogspot.com, the amount will not only cover travel costs, but hearing aids, supplies for hearing aids (specifically solar powered batteries), books, early intervention materials and toys.
Fuller said these supplies are very much in demand and provide great tools to teachers and parents. The blog also states that only $982.16 has been raised so far.
Fuller said a few hundred American dollars goes a long way in Vietnam and the supplies they could give this school would help them make a long lasting impact. A hearing aid for one child had a price of about $100, but to a parent in Vietnam that could be their entire year’s salary. Implants are rarely an option due to a cost of about $20,000.
According to 2005 World Health Organization statistics, 278 million people are suffering from moderate to profound hearing impairment. Current hearing aid production meets less than 10 percent of global need.
Fuller said the students will not only bring supplies, but help experts train and prepare teachers. They will have consultation sessions with parents and children. These students will also have the opportunity to help set up a brand new intervention building the school had just received a grant for.
Fuller said that early intervention (from birth to age 3) is crucial to children with hearing loss because they cannot receive government help until the age of five. This entails children losing crucial development years, and even when they do receive help, it is only through the 8th grade.
“The cause is meant to give back for years to come. It’s not just a one-time thing. We will be training teachers and giving them the resources so they can provide for themselves long term,” Fenton said.
The mission of The Global Foundation is “to make a direct and lasting impact on the futures of thousands of deaf and hard of hearing children around the world by providing them with access to the technology, education, and resources they need to become contributing members of society.” The organization was founded by Paige Stringer after she traveled across Southeast Asia and saw how few children were getting the help they needed.
Fuller said this organization does much more than just help a child obtain a hearing aid. It can help give them a strong support system.
“I am so excited to work with this organization because its addressing the whole child,” Fuller said.
Fuller described her work as beyond rewarding even though it sometimes can pose challenging and require her to think creatively. But when a child speaks their first word, Fuller said it has a profound impact.
“The kids cry, the parents cry; Their whole lives they have been told their child would never speak,” Fuller said
Fuller said this opportunity will get the graduate students out into the real world and help them practice the skills they have been learning here at USU.
“We need help in America, but we are just a small percentage,” Fuller said. “Whatever they learn, they bring it back here and it makes them a better person.”
– jessie.a.sweat@aggiemail.usu.edu