Mipla Binna - Early intervention services

Transcript

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are warned that the following video may contain images and voices of deceased persons.

Early Intervention Services

What is your understanding of early intervention services?

Kyleigh Brown-Lolohea: In the beginning when I first heard the words early intervention, it sounded like a negative experience was about to begin, but it's pretty much just a group of services that want the best outcome for your child and giving us that informed choice to make the decision that will suit our child down the track.

I think when you first meet them, it will be overwhelming, but knowing that they're there to have any questions answered or be able to refer you to a service or a person that knows a bit more about any particular step on the way. When I look back on it, it was like, oh, I don't really need it, but I did need it. I do need the people and just to answer the questions and throw me in the right direction.

What factors did you take into consideration when deciding on an Early Intervention Service?

They have one-on-one, therapy with her, which was something that I wanted. I wanted it all focused on her, so she has the best outcome. Having that one-on-one relationship with the, like she's a speech therapist, initially, it would improve her outcomes in accessing speech and learning how to listen and things like that. So it was more the one-on-one focus and having spoken to parents that were going through the same situation and they could tell their journeys. All the evidence that they supplied us with videos that we watched and different things like that, but just knowing that they were there and once Moana gets older, they have a program where the kids, the cochlear kids that have grown up, come back and teach or do a discussion of what they're doing now, so I thought that was really awesome, and she'd be able to develop that little network of cochlear kids and, you know, support their each other's journey, growing up.

Barry & Margaret Cedric: First we didn't want to go down the road. Don't go near cochlear implant because No, she's too young. Too young. Yeah. So when we were at the, at the crossroads saying No to the implant, then came on board deaf services and saying, Hey, Listen here, I can communicate with you as justice as well, getting, you know, all that stuff. Imagine Laquita communicating like that. That excited us. That's excited. And, you know, firing the belly on, that's it. Angry. And they said, well, what they were saying is that, you know, there's, there's room for both. Yeah. Wow. They can, man, these guys can boogie, they can communicate. And so there's scope and hope for Laquita.

What pathway did you decide to take for your child?

Kyleigh Brown-Lolohea: Well, in the beginning we met Cheryl and she gave us information on all the things that we should expect throughout the first 12 months, and some of that was learning how to do sign language, engaging with other families that were going down the same pathways, and we wanted to give her the best access to speech therapists and therapists to help her learn how to talk and listen. And in relation to sign language, I'd love to do that, but I think within my community at the moment, like my family and everyone like that, no one knows sign language, but I'm still learning a little bit of sign language and trying to incorporate that but if I had someone with me every day that knew it, it would be a lot easier. So we just think she's only had hearing now for, what, five months. So she's still got a long way to go in relation to speech and everything like that.

Barry & Margaret Cedric: When we went to Australian Hearing, they fitted Laquita with hearing aids, but because her ears were so badly discharging, they couldn't put their hearing aid inside of her ears. So we, they tried something else. Wendy had Australian Hearing, said We might go bone conduction way. Okay. So, okay, we'll do it. So we took Laquita in, got her fitted again. And we rang it home to see how she'd go about it at home and we put the headband on her and in little box just staying down on her trousers, but still to no avail. It was still no good. So we went back to Wendy and said, nah, it's still not helping. And she won't wear it. And, we asked questions and see what we can do. So we were funded through Auslan, so we went to classes. We met some lovely lady, Alma and Sue. They taught us a lot like. They taught Laquita grandfather or all that stuff. They were so wonderful. But we do want Laquita to talk and even if that implant will help her just a little bit, okay, we'll go down that road. We'll go and do it. After all those months and the years, how are we gonna go? We could confidently say Margaret and I, and also bringing Laquita of, side of the family and father's side in and around that one campfire, that one table to, because they wanna feel part of that journey too. And if you ask us today, we'd say we cochlear implant.