A class of four kids sat in a circle during show-and-tell, talking about the items they brought to preschool. After his teacher asked what he brought for show-and-tell, 3-year-old Landon Hays heroically thrusted his Buzz Lightyear toy into the air.
A few years ago, Landon would not have been able to hear his teacher because he was born moderatly deaf in both ears.
Hearing loss can cause children to struggle with learning to speak or make speaking impossible without outside help. The Memphis Oral School for the Deaf helps those kids hear sounds and learn to speak by giving them the technology needed to hear high-frequency noises.
Lauren Hays, Memphis Oral School development director and Landon’s mother, had never heard about the Oral School until she needed the school’s help. The work the school has done for her son inspired her to work at the school, Hays said.
“We are the best kept secret in the Mid-South,” Hays said. “In 2014, I had twin boys, and one of my new sons failed his hearing screening.”
Instead of teaching sign language, most kids in the program are given a Cochlear Implant to affect sounds so they can be heard.
“As long as a child receives the appropriate hearing device, they will have access to all the frequencies that a normal hearing person has access to,” Hays said. “From that point, the brain is a miraculous muscle that learns spoken language, truly during that birth to 6 (months) window.”
The school has two programs. The first, sound beginnings, offers kids as young as a few months old the technology and teaching required to catch up in hearing and speaking with other children their age.
“This is where we really highlight early intervention,” Hays said. “As children are diagnosed with hearing loss in the hospital, they can begin our program immediately.”
Families can come with their kids to the Oral School once per week to attend sound beginnings to learn how to make a beneficial hearing environment for their child.
Once the children turn two years old, the school admits them into the preschool, where they are prepared to transition into a normal kindergarten.
“We started here at sound beginnings with my son,” Hays said. “Now he’s singing ‘Little Miss Muffet’ in his classroom and has age-appropriate language compared to his twin brother.”
In the United States, about 1.4 out of 1,000 babies are diagnosed with hearing loss upon birth, according to a survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Hays said hearing loss being a specific issue has kept the school anonymity. This is a problem as the school offers help to families with low economic status get their children the help they need.
“Deaf children are born to families of all socioeconomic backgrounds,” Hays said. “In 59 years, we have never turned a family away for inability to contribute at all towards tuition cost.”
The Oral School makes up for this by implementing an income-cost scale and taking donations, as each child costs $50,000 per year to keep in the program.
Alumni of the program, such as development associate and assistant teacher Brittany Pellegra, often give back to the program either through donations or by working at the school.
“It’s a great opportunity for me to see what it’s like to teach these kids and to be behind these kids,” Pellegra said. “The cool thing is that some of the teachers here were my former teachers as well. It’s really neat to see that the teachers still have the same passion and the same drive to help these kids live independently.”
Although Pellegra was identified late as having hearing loss, she received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Memphis in 2009. She thinks getting the technology early made the greatest impact on kids’ lives recently.
“I didn’t get my Cochlear Implant until I was 4,” Pellegra said. “The biggest difference for me is that these children have technology early on. So they are learning to hear and talk beautifully at age one, where I didn’t get that opportunity until I was 4.”
Memphis Oral School Preschooler Landon Hays glues the back of his paper. The son of Development Director Lauren Hays enrolled for the sound beginnings program in 2014 and continued with the preschool program this year.
A new sound beginnings child listens to an instructor with his family. The sound beginnings program services children from birth to two years old.
Britanny Pellegra, Memphis Oral School development associate and assistant teacher, poses next to pictures of when she was in the Oral School. The Oral School Alumna earned a bachelors degree from the University of Memphis in 2009 and joined the MOSD team in January 2018.
