The Big E – E-coustics

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240 – July, 2025

By Elaine Lessig

Yes. I am playing with words. The word “acoustics” is simply the science of sound, including its production, control, transmission, and effects. It is the “effects” of acoustics which offer me the license to bend the initial vowel, not the ability to spell. Raising a son born with severe sensory neural hearing impairment proved to be quite an education. From that life experience, I learned the unending value of acoustics, and I used the science daily, not just for our son, but for me, too. Each of those parts of the whole create a basis of how we communicate effectively, which is a critical life skill for each of us.

Most of you, my kind readers, recognize my ability to communicate. It developed from necessity as I advocated for a child we were told would never speak. Wrap your head around that for a moment. It was an unbearable sentence to listen to the audiologists deliver. It took time to truly incorporate their words. When the shock subsided, you can appreciate how determined I became to do almost anything I could for our near two-year-old. Being a first-time parent in my early twenties, what did I know? To be precise, I knew nothing.

One thing I did figure out rather quickly is that if you are sinking, you better find a way to avoid drowning. Marking the day we learned his prognosis as the bottom, it made some sense that as the days and months pass, a plan needed to be put into place to get up to the surface. The goal from day one began with hope and not much else. At The Rehabilitation Department of Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, we met with the audiologists again. From that meeting began a rigorous program of frequent speech therapy resulting in a lifelong, successful progression of hearing and speaking.

Click here to read the complete article
240 – July, 2025

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