Welcome back to the All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein and I’m so glad you are here for another All About You episode! If you are new around here, Welcome. Thank you for joining us. Every other episode after the main episode, I do an All About You episode where I read your comments and reviews of the show which are so appreciated. And I answer some of the questions that have been coming in on Instagram and on Facebook @allaboutaudiology podcast.

I’m going to start by reading such a lovely review from Samantha3185 who
writes:

“I’m enjoying your podcast. It’s been encouraging as a parent of a deaf child to hear from professionals. It’s incredibly difficult to find unbiased research when making choices. I also personally like the perspective that deaf children can be bilingual with ASL (American Sign Language) and English, as this is what we have chosen for our son. And that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. By using both at a young age, they’ll have those skills when they get older to make those communication decisions. Thank you for putting this out there as a resource for us.”

Thank you, Samantha, for writing such a beautiful review and I’m really glad
that that message resonated with you. Because from the beginning of this
podcast, it’s always been my goal to give you guys the resources, the
information, the things that you need so you can make the decisions that are
best for you and your family. There is no “One size fits all, you have to
do it my way.” “You have to go into a one language program either listening or
spoken language or it’s totally deaf education and ASL. That’s it those are the
only two options.” There are so many other factors involved and we’ve discussed
these in previous episodes. AND we’re having some exciting interviews coming up
in the next couple of episodes.

Part of my whole mission with this is to empower you that you are able to deal with whatever is going on related to hearing loss. Whether it’s a child with hearing loss or an elderly parent with hearing loss or your own journey with audiology, with whatever is going on for you in your family and your loved ones, I want you to feel empowered. And with information and understanding, comes confidence, and self-efficacy, which means that you believe you are able to do things. That you believe you are able to learn something and execute it. A very important part of the process is developing self-efficacy both as a person with hearing loss or as a caregiver or a loved one to a person with hearing loss. Many parents of young children have to go through this process where they are also dealing with the entire hearing loss, and how to take care of the devices. Hearing aids and cochlear implants and FM systems and batteries and cables and wires and all these things. They are complicated and there’s a learning curve to understand how do all these pieces fit together. So, I made a really quick troubleshooting video and you can see it over on Facebook and Instagram. But I’m going to talk a little bit about why I made that video and why it’s been received so well.