This is my 2 year old son, who was born hard of hearing. Thanks to hearing aids and state funded therapy, he is meeting all of his speech and language milestones. As a mother of a deaf/hard-of-hearing child, I have learned so much about the enormous impact of devices like hearing aids and cochlear implants.

The first 3-5 years of a child's life is the most critical in developing speech. If sound is not accessed during these years, regardless of the therapies and hearing technology acquired afterward, speech cannot be developed.

Insurance companies generally do not cover the cost of hearing aids. Even more frustratingly, children who are severely or profoundly deaf, are forced to purchase expensive hearing aids to become candidates for cochlear implantation. Why is this so frustrating? Hearing aids amplify sound but there is a limit to the amplification and in addition, physical limitations like damaged hair cells null the use of hearing aids (cochlear implants convey sound via electrical signals). All this to say, this is a method in which insurance companies bar parents from giving their children access to sound and language.

My son attends a deaf and blind school and one of his sweet two-year-old classmates is severely deaf. She does not having hearing aids, and neither does her mother, or her grandfather who are also profoundly deaf. They have not been able to afford hearing aide, despite being hard and full time working adults WITH insurance. They have been saving as much as they can, but with the cost of living crisis, this goal for purchasing hearing aides is starting to feel out of reach. The grandfather loves and misses the sound of music; the mother wants her daughter to have hearing aides. Please help me in helping this family purchase hearing aids, which they are working so hard to get for three generations.