Easterseals Celebrates Better Hearing and Speech Month

It is a typical scene happening in many homes across the country, a family sharing a meal at the table. However, for the Shrieves family, this night is anything but typical. For the first time since two-year-old Cheyanne was born, the family is all eating the same meal. Easterseals speech therapy services helped this magical moment come true.

“Tonight, Cheyanne ate what we ate for dinner. She ate chicken, a few green beans and some potatoes! That is the first time ever! I have tears in my eyes I am so excited and proud of her,” Cheyanne’s mom, Heather, says. “Thank you Easterseals for all your hard work and help. It means more than I could ever express.”

May is Better Hearing and Speech Month. Although more than 5 million children in the United States have a speech, language, or hearing disorder, parents are often unsure about what to do when they suspect their child may be affected.

Cheyanne originally started speech therapy to help her learn sign language so she could communicate with her mom. Now, speech therapy is helping her broaden her vocabulary, tolerate more textured foods, like the dinner she shared with her family, and brush her teeth.

“Therapy has helped my daughter meet her milestones. But it has also helped me as a mom,” Heather says. “I have been given the tools to help my daughter meet those milestones and it has helped me realize that I am not alone in this. My husband and I have found a village at Easterseals that has helped us in so many ways. We have also learned how to be an advocate for our daughter.”  

If there is a concern about a child’s speech-language-feeding development, Easterseals team of Master’s level American Speech-Language-Hearing Association certified speech-language pathologists can provide the answers parents seek. If there is a concern about a child’s speech, Easterseals should be contacted for a full evaluation. Easterseals licensed Speech-Language Pathologists are available to provide services to children of all ages in our locations in Delaware and Maryland’s eastern shore.