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Read the full transcript here

Today Dr. Saperstein speaks with Jen Walker, mother to 7-year-old hard of hearing girl who was internationally adopted. The two discuss the desire to look for ways to create a supportive environment while seeing your whole child. Jen shares parallels with going through the international adoption process and when her daughter was identified as hard-of-hearing. Listen or read the transcript to hear Jen share how and where to look for resources for hard-of-hearing kids, the importance of letting your child have a life of their own, and always looking for ways to connect with them.

This week on the All About Audiology podcast:

• 7:20 – Dealing with international adoption and hearing loss process at the same time, and finding similar situations and difficulties in both process

• 12:00   – Importance of intersectional identities and not “tagging” kids so that they can grow up as individuals of their own

• 16:00 – First reaction after finding out about your kid’s hearing loss and the first steps to look for resources

• 20:10 – Finding the  Connect & Advocate program for the first time and getting involved

• 25:50 Advocating using the F-I-G Method to balance oversharing and practical advocating. 

• 29:30 – The Connect & Advocate program lets you connect with your child, share with people going through similar experiences, and receive educational and medical advise

For more resources and research visit:

All About Audiology Website 

All About Audiology Facebook group  

All About Audiology Instagram

And the Prodana pay-it-forward platform here: https://prodana.org/practioner/lilach-saperstein/audiology-counseling–dr–lilach-saperstein

Links for Jen’s pages:

@teamwalkergonegloball

@80sgirlhtx

https://teamwalkergoneglobal.wordpress.com

Mentioned in this episode:

• Deaf Utopia

Listen Next/Related Episodes

• Mallorie Evans
• Erin Miller

Transcript

Dr. Lilach Saperstein:

Welcome back to the All About Audiology podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Lilach Saperstein, and this is the show that is all about you and your journey. 

A lot of the audiology journey and having a child who is deaf or hard of hearing revolves around questions and not knowing where to get the answers. So that is what this show is all about. It is, you know, giving you a lot of information, a lot of resources, conversations with lots of different people for you to then go and say: Does this apply to me? If yes, excellent, you learn something that can help you on your way. 

So, on today’s episode, I’m so excited to talk to one of my favorite people who is going to introduce herself in a moment, but I just have to say that every single time we hop on a call together, every time that we have communicated and work together, it always makes me so joyous, so I’m really excited to introduce you all, to Jen Walther, welcome, Jen.

Jen Walker:

Thank you, that’s something to live up to there, no pressure, right? [Laughs]

LS:

You know, there’s just something that happens in the universe, when two people feel like they have a lot of the same values, and also really align with: I know something that you are looking to know more about, and that is very good for both sides of that equation. [Laughs] Because it gives, you know, part of the journey for the all about audiology, the parenting coaching side of things that I’m doing, the Connect and advocate members group, you know, Jen was one of the first people to join that and really make what I’m doing valid. [Laughs] So that’s really important for my journalism, thank you for that. 

Anyway, listen, people want to know who you are, why are you on the show today? So please give us an introduction, a little background.

JW:

Yeah, sure.

Jen Walker, I live in Houston with my husband and my daughter, my daughter is hard of hearing or deaf hard of hearing. We kind of haven’t, I don’t know, aligned on the appropriate label, because she’s still only 7, so she’s just kind of growing into how she wants to be known as. 

So, in addition to her being deaf and hard of hearing, she was adopted internationally. So she came home to our house at about two and a half years old. And that was, yeah, five years ago. Wow. Time flies. [Laughs]

LS:

I think I have just one question on that, that people might wonder, did you have any idea or understanding of her hearing status or being hard of hearing before you met her? 

JW:

So we are, I think, fairly clueless parents, maybe. Because if you go through the international adoption process you get some information about this child that you’re going to bring into your house and to your family. So the information that we got, we got a medical file and some videos and pictures, and there are doctors in the US that specialize in international adoption files. And so you have like 48 hours to get a doctor to review that file and get back to you from when you have it to make that kind of “yes, we’re all in” decision. So her file, said that her hearing was normal. It had some other special needs listed. But one of the, I remember very clearly, one of the doctors that we talked to, I  actually talked to two, and one of them said, “Well, you know, with this need, sometimes, hearing loss can be an issue. So you should look out for that”. And I noticed on some of her videos that, you know, she doesn’t always respond to the people calling. And like I said, we’re a little bit clueless parents, so we were like, oh, yeah, okay, whatever, sounds her hearing is normal, let’s just… We kind of, almost, blew it off. So, no, we did not know when she came home that she heard differently than we do. And we did not know for probably about a good six months of her being home. And really it was, you know, three or four months, and we were with the pediatrician, and just kind of, you know, general overview updates all that and she was like, “Well, you know, she hasn’t really picked up that much speech since being home, you should maybe get her hearing evaluated, probably not a big deal”. 

Even in our like, audiology reports now, it says like “mom said, we don’t really think that she can’t hear”, and every time I read it, I just kind of cringe. Why were we not kind of up on this? So…

LS:

You also were doing something new. You were dealing with so much that, that wasn’t at all on your radar. So, hurray for the pediatrician, made that referral, and it’s okay that you weren’t concerned because that’s, you know, that’s when it’s like, the professionals are there for you hopefully.

JW:

Yeah. And, you know, I feel really fortunate because I know a lot of people have to push their doctors for those referrals, and we didn’t have to. Then we did have to wait to get in to see the audiologist. I think that I called in like March or so, and it was June, by the time we finally got the appointment. So, on one hand, also, we were like, well, we don’t really think it’s a problem so we won’t press for it either, we’ll just set it up and see what happens. 

But we’ve been, I would say, very, very fortunate to have professionals around us that have pushed for us and advocated for us early on. And that’s, you know, the pediatrician who said, “you should maybe get her hearing checked”, and then when we went to audiology and we did the first sound booth test. I mean, she was three at the time, not interested in a sound booth test, quite frankly right? Not knowing what to do, and at the same time, not being able to hear what was going on, we didn’t know that. So, you know, at the end of the test, the audiologist is like, “well, it’s kind of inconclusive, but we suspect there’s an issue. So