Communicate with Joy

Executive Director Cindy Dickeson and her team see it all the time. Parents walk through the doors of CEID, the Center for Early Intervention on Deafness, with a young child who is deaf or hard of hearing. Despite all their preparation, planning, and love, they have discovered that they can’t communicate with their child the way they expected — through voice and sound. They are frustrated, unsure, even defeated.

But that’s not how they look when they come out.

“You can see their shoulders start to soften after one visit,” says Dickeson, Executive Director of the Berkeley-based center, which provides family-centered, wraparound services for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Shannon Mitchell is one such parent. A mother to five-year-old twin boys Arlo and Augie, along with their eight-year-old sister Avery, Mitchell was unsure of what to do when her sons were diagnosed with moderate to severe bilateral hearing loss. When she visited the center’s preschool to learn more, she was surprised by the sense of joy.

“There was so much singing and signing and dancing and videos, with parents and teachers and kids having the best time,” she said. She left in tears, but not before deciding: “From that day forward, I knew I would do anything to get my kids to go there.”

CEID’s holistic, family-centered approach is unique in the Bay Area, and a nationally-recognized model of success, serving 1,200 families per year. Their interdisciplinary practice for children aged zero to five offers many kinds of therapies, along with audiology services which include testing and hearing aids. This full-service approach means that practitioners often catch other disabilities early as well.

Without successful early intervention, academic outcomes plummet; only 60% of youth who are deaf/hard of hearing, for instance, graduate from high school.
CEID’s commitment to the community extends to adults as well, with audiology clinics providing the full range of testing and hearing aid services. Centering equity and inclusion is a core value of their work, and 90% of their audiology patients qualify as low income.

The center also offers training and support for the community and looks for ways to help schools, churches, synagogues, and other organizations improve the experience for deaf/hard of hearing youth.

“Ninety percent of deaf or hard of hearing children are born to hearing parents,” said Dickeson. “Most of these parents don’t know where to start. Many have never even met a deaf person. Parents face a huge learning curve and a range of overwhelming emotions. What we can do is support them at the highest level, and help them communicate with their child with a sense of joy.”