A Healthcare Video About Teaching Deaf Kids To Hear
Imagine Teaching Deaf Children How to Hear—That's What They Do at the Auditory-Verbal Center.
This healthcare video is based on a truly heartwarming story. It's about the amazing work of the Auditory-Verbal Center in Atlanta.
AVC is a nonprofit organization that works with deaf and hearing impaired children, and teaches them how to hear.
No, I’m not exaggerating. That’s what they do.
The Director at AVC, Debbie Brilling, started out as a client. When her daughter was 18 months old, she was diagnosed as “profoundly deaf.” A few months later, her son was born deaf as well.
So Debbie enrolled both children at AVC, and spent years taking them to therapy sessions.
And now, she’s been their Director for 16 years.
A Devastating Diagnosis
Parents of deaf children often assume that their kids will live their entire lives in a silent world. But the reality is much more amazing.
Today, deaf kids are getting cochlear implants at a very young age—just one or two months. Then they start weekly therapy sessions at AVC, learning to interpret the sounds they hear. But the average parent doesn’t know that’s even possible.
“When you get the diagnosis, it’s devastating,” Debbie explains. “People think, how am I going to communicate with this child? Will they be able to hear music? Hear the birds outside? Speak to Grandma and Grandpa?”
Shooting a Healthcare Video
To help AVC tell their story, I interviewed Debbie and her son Jonathan on camera, along with most of their therapists.
Several of the parents also gave us permission to film their children during actual sessions.
AVC works with hundreds of kids in Atlanta, helping them learn to hear.
More importantly, they’re teaching parents how to continue the therapy at home. That way, the kids achieve much more than would be possible in a single one-hour session each week.
Amazing Possibilities
So much has changed in the past few years. New technology, new learning, is making so much more possible.
Today, every child born in Georgia is tested for hearing loss the day they’re born. Kids are getting into therapy earlier and earlier, and graduating from the program well before first grade. Sometimes as young as three years old.
Debbie summed it all up like this: “It’s been a journey, but it’s been an awesome journey.”
Many thanks to Debbie and Jonathan Brilling, and all the therapists at AVC, for agreeing to appear in this video, and to Rich Casanova from Podcast World Tour for the project referral.
About the Author:
Harry Hayes is the owner and executive producer at Content Puppy Productions, a corporate video production agency based in Charlotte. Before starting Content Puppy, he spent 20+ years as an advertising writer and creative director.
