Inspiring stories
Cameron was one of the first children to attend Christopher Place, after an early diagnosis of hearing impairment. His mother, Judith, remembers: "The child gets superb care - that goes without saying - but you as a family gain so much from Christopher Place, because of the confidence and support they provide".
His communication is now fantastic! His deafness is no barrier to the fulfilment of his potential. According to his latest school report, he "just seems to have thrown himself wholeheartedly into everything the school has to offer. He's an inspiration to us all".
When my daughter started Christopher Place in September 2009 she was over 2 years old with no vocabulary to speak of and the range of sounds she was making was extremely limited. With a history of a very difficult illness we had no idea what the future held for her and what she would be capable of achieving. Upon the advice of a speech therapist, we decided to send her to Christopher Place two days a week where she would attend the nursery group as well as receive speech and occupational therapy. She was also going to a mainstream nursery three days a week.
1.5 years on, my daughter is now a bright chatterbox with an attitude! She can tell stories, sing songs, even tell jokes! The incredible pace of her progress is delighting us every day and we are forever grateful to those who have been instrumental in enabling this including all the staff at Christopher Place...
From day one she loved coming to the small toddlers group with its welcoming atmosphere. In addition to being very friendly and nice, all of her teachers and therapists at Christopher Place are highly knowledgeable and experienced in their field hence are able to provide very insightful support throughout. The small class size enables her teacher to provide individual attention to her and observe her and her progress very closely to devise a customised programme.
The working style is very much as a team involving me as her parent, her speech and occupational therapists on site as well as her external therapists. This enables us to determine her individual needs and development areas and work as a coordinated team to address those needs, as well as assess progress regularly and adjust the programme as needed.
Working with Christopher Place is the whole package, support for the parent as well as the child, tapping into a wealth of expertise provided by extremely responsive individuals. We feel very lucky as a family to have found the amazing professional and personal support network we found in Christopher Place.
A couple of years ago Sally and I had our first son, Rhys. He was born 3 months prematurely and as is often the case with very premature babies there were a few complications.
Rhys was diagnosed as deaf and having Cerebral Palsy.
Our days were consumed by a relentless stream of appointments with paediatricians, neurologists, audiologists, consultants and therapists.
When Rhys was 5 months old he began wearing hearing aids and we, as parents, began to try and comprehend what raising a deaf child meant.
At the time I had no idea that deaf children needed speech therapy but it dawned on us that if Rhys was to be able to communicate and understand the world around him then speech therapy was the key.
Around this time Rhys began attending one to one speech therapy sessions at Christopher Place and we realised that here was a place where everyone understood the challenges a deaf child faces on a daily basis, the constant coaching required to use speech and the consistent trickle of language all around them in a way that they can break down and comprehend.
That’s not to say that we were offered a miracle cure – more that the people we met treated us with empathy and respect – and we realised that with patience and persistence there was a through all this.
And so session by session Rhys started to make speech sounds – each murmer a triumph. Then identifying objects – ‘doh’ for ‘dog’ – that’ll do. Every inch of progress celebrated, but once you start no amount of success is too much.
And then words – incredible. I used to have a list of the 12 words Rhys could say and then when my mum called Rhys a chatterbox I realised that I’d given up counting.
And now, as Rhys approaches school age he has age appropriate speech, tells jokes and chats away to adults. Inconceivable a few years ago.
And that’s the other thing that we’ve learned over the last few years. That though Rhys has reached a good place it doesn’t mean he’s ‘fixed’ – but the time spent at Christopher Place has given us as parents the confidence and understanding of deafness to move on well equipped for the next stage.
So on the surface Christopher Place might just be a speech therapy centre but I can promise you that it is so much more than that.