Low-income children who are deaf or hard of hearing are getting help this summer on the South Coast.
Eleven-year-old Natalie Juarez, who has extreme hearing loss, wears implants that allow her to hear.
“Without my implants, I feel deaf. Like you can’t hear nothing,” she said.
But even with the implants, she still needs speech and language therapy, which is hard to come by in the summer when school is out. That’s why she and other kids who are deaf or hard of hearing are in a free eight-week program held at the nonprofit, No Limits, in Oxnard.
It’s taught by graduate students from California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. Megan Brown, who’s working towards her teaching credential in hearing loss, volunteers her time here.
“I’m helping them develop listening and spoken language so that they're able to hold conversations with people. That’s the main goal,” she said.
Cal Lutheran is the parent of KCLU Radio.