As Judy and I consult with families in DaLat, I am reminded of my early days in the field of teaching children who are deaf. Jim and I went to Montreal to study with Dan Ling and Nan Ling Phillips at McGill University. Dan had this amazing connection with children and their parents. With old hearing aids or no hearing aids, Dan was able to show the parents and his trainees how to stimulate good speech through even minimal amounts of hearing. Our visit to the school in DaLat is reminiscent of those early years. These children have not had access to their own personal hearing aids. Judy welcomes each family with her warm happy smile. As she shows the parents and teachers here how to stimulate early listening skills and imitation, she reminds me of how Dan Ling did this with the children we observed at schoolsfor the deaf in the USA and Canada so long ago. Now those schools have been closed or have changed to offer one-one Auditory-Verbal parent guidance. Recognizing this correlation gives me great hope for the children of the DaLat school.
Judy and her husband, Ray received parent guidance from Dan and Nan for their son, Scott who has a profound hearing loss, so it really is not that surprising that Judy reminds me of Dan. Judy had great Auditory-Verbal teachers! I just never thought of it like this until I saw her today in DaLat, Vietnam doing what she loves to do and doing it so well.
About Me
- Lea Donovan Watson
- Gloucester, MA, United States
- Listening and Spoken Language Specialist, Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist, Speech-Language Pathologist, International consultant for LSLS training and children with hearing loss, husband-wife AVCC team, mother of three amazing individuals.
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