To understand how our family came to choose Cued Speech, you should probably understand a little bit of my son’s history. He was not born with a hearing impairment, but to say that he’s medically complicated is a bit of an understatement.  He seemed like the perfect child at birth, but what no one knew was that he didn’t have a working immune system. The really short version of that story is that he ended up hospitalized for months on a ventilator, and had a bone marrow transplant.  His immune system still isn’t perfect, but it’s better than what he started with. We suspect that he lost his hearing after a battle with peritonitis, which he almost did not survive; this happened just before his third birthday.  It was the use of ototoxic IV antibiotics which saved his life, but also led to his hearing loss.  Because of his weak immune system and bone marrow transplant he was not allowed to be in any type of preschool with other children.  We did have homebound instruction with teachers and therapists provided by the county, but they were required to wear surgical masks and gloves to protect him from the risks of another infection. It wasn’t until he began Kindergarten that was finally allowed to be with small groups of children.  Another twist to this story comes from the fact that his hearing impairment was not diagnosed until he was 7 years old and in 2nd grade.  Between the ages of 3 and 7 his hearing was tested, but we were told that he had a processing disorder, not a hearing loss.  Because of what they said was a processing disorder, he was provided an FM system for the classroom.  This consisted of a set of head phones connected to a receiver that looked something like a Walkman, but the only "channel" he could get was the teacher.  The teacher wore a microphone and a transmitter which sent the signal to his "Walkman".  The purpose of the FM system was to make it easier for him to distinguish what he should listen to and focus on.  This was supposed to help him learn how to process what he was hearing. We later learned that this "crutch" was the only thing that enabled him to learn language during those early school years.  It was during his 2nd grade year that we went UVA’s Kluge Center for an unrelated therapy program that the therapists there insisted that we have another hearing test performed.  I explained that we’d had them done and what the results were, but they just wanted to see for themselves.  Good thing!  The audiologist there determined that he was not only hearing impaired, but fell in the range of moderately to severely deaf!  We were shocked, angry, guilt ridden and confused.  How could this be?  We’d had his hearing tested!  We’d had it tested more than once!  I later came to learn that I wasn’t the only parent who’s child had been tested for a hearing loss and incorrectly told that was no hearing loss, but that will have to be included in the next part of this story.