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NEWSPAPER ARTICLE #2

Sycamore Living
October 2005

Reprinted courtesy of the Sycamore Living.

Revolutionary school thanks Montgomery for five years of support
By Roz Friedman
Contributor

The sweetest sounds I’ll ever hear are waiting to be said,” is a line from a 1962 Broadway show song.  It might well have been the signature song for parents of deaf children who don’t speak.  Those sounds, however, have been heard for the past five years in the Montgomery Presbyterian Church where a private chartered school, Ohio Valley Voices (OVV) teaches profoundly hearing-impaired children how to talk and to understand when others talk to them.

When the school opened its doors it was one of only 20-25 private oral education schools in the country, the only one in the Tristate, and just one of seven that follow the curriculum pioneered by Jean Moog, an intensive program of speech therapy throughout the entire day along with academic subjects required by the state.

Sizable growth, however, has necessitated a move from their current Montgomery location.  “We have grown substantially from serving children 2 ½ to 7 years of age to serving children from birth up to second grade,” explained director Maria Sentelik, a Ph.D candidate in audiology who is the mother of a hearing impaired daughter.  “We also have added and audiology program, parent education, and parent support groups.”

After the current school year OVV will move to Loveland where a ground-breaking for their new school was held in August.  “However, Montgomery loved our program and if they could have located a property for us they would have,” Sentelik said.  Expressing her gratitude to the city, she enthusiastically praised their assistance.  “We want to thank Montgomery for its generous support over these years.  They approved rezoning when we needed to add a modular trailer during our second year for our new audiology program and administrative offices, gave us several extensions while we were looking for a new place to build our school, and helped us get zoning to lease the house next door to the church in our third year for new programs.”

The school will always remember Montgomery as the place where they laid the foundations for their revolutionary program and achieved their initial success.  In its first year OVV started with16 students, graduated 12 and had a waiting list,” reported Sentelik.  “But we were living in three different places and had no more room to grow here.”

The new facility, said Sentelik, is also necessary to accommodate the school’s fastest growing population: infants up to 3 years of age.  “We anticipate our needs will grow rapidly once the federal law mandating early infant hearing screenings goes into effect,” the director pointed out.  “It is estimated that 450 children a year in Ohio will be identified with hearing loss.”

Early detection is key

Early intervention is particularly important for children who have had cochlear implants which includes 80 percent of the OVV students.  Serving this younger population is critical, pointed out Kenwood resident Dr. Steve Muething, who is vice-president of OVV and director of clinical services of general pediatrics at Children’s Hospital.  “There is only a brief window of opportunity available to a deaf child with a cochlear implant to harness the ability to hear and speak.  Once this window closes the child will never learn to speak or hear clearly.”

Because of this surgical breakthrough and technological changes, children now start OVV as early as 18 months, whereas in 2000 they started at four to five years of age.

The results of early intervention have paid off, according to Sentelik.  “in five years we have had 23 graduates, eighty percent of whom are scoring within the normal hearing limits for language, reading, and vocabulary.  That’s incredible for profoundly deaf children,” she said, explaining that the average deaf adult reads on the third to fourth grade level.  “We have OVV graduates now in the public schools reading on the fifth to sixth grade level.  Those statistics clarify what we do.”

Sentelik’s goal is to get kids into public school as soon as possible.  “The average graduate who went on to public school in 2000 was eight or nine years old,” she said.  “Today we graduate kids in kindergarten.  I believe that profoundly hearing impaired should be in mainstreamed society and be able to function independently without interpreters.”

Parents of OVV graduates who agree with Sentelik chose OVV’s oral education over sign language because they wanted their children to be successful in the hearing world.  “If my daughter walked into a room of several hundred people, how many could sign,” asked Steve Burns, a Miami Heights resident and finance director for the Hamilton County Recorders Office.  “I wanted her to be oral so she could talk to you.”  Mike Gartner, Anderson Township resident and associate director of finance for Procter & Gamble, agreed.  “Learning to speak really empowers students,” he said.

Delhi resident, Bob Murphy, a vice president of sales for Schiff, Kriedler, and Shell, Inc., believed in oral education so much that his wife moved to St. Louis in 1999 so their daughter could attend the Moog program.  To eliminate that long commute for others, the Gartner, Burns, and Murphy families were instrumental in raising funds to bring the Moog program to Cincinnati.

“If it weren’t for those founding families, we would have moved to St. Louis,” said Laurie and Mark Dickman of Madeira, one of 10 families over the past five years who moved to Cincinnati so their children could attend OVV.  During her first visit to the school, Laurie was excited that she could understand the children.

“They definitely work miracles there,” she reported back to her husband in Ottawa, Ohio.  “This is where Aaron belongs.”  Aaron, now 3 years-old, arrived at OVV several months after his cochlear implant in 2003.  She can still remember his first words: mama, ball, and Kylie, the name of his sister. “Now he is counting up to 30, says short phrases, knows all his letters, and can draw and write names.”  Laurie said.  She is hoping he will be mainstreamed by the first grade.

Montgomery residents Vinay and Reena Kumar also considered moving to St. Louis when they realized their son, Rachit was born with a profound hearing loss.  After their son’s cochlear implant at 21 months of age, there was no oral school in Cincinnati.  “My husband joined the Moog international e-mail support group to share experiences,” Reena explained.  Her devastation upon originally learning of her son’s hearing loss was eased when the OVV school opened.  “He started in July and by December he was saying phrases,” recalled an elated Reena, a Sycamore School substitute teacher.  “I was so happy.”  Now 7 ½ years old, Rachit is in the gifted program at Montgomery Elementary.   “He is very chatty and we can all understand him.  He never stops talking,” his proud mother said.

Byron Haban and Kelly Pitocco of Madeira, who two sons are profoundly deaf, consider themselves lucky to be living in Cincinnati which “is blessed with this program which has a 25 year track record.”  If not for OVV, the couple would have moved to St. Louis, they said.  “Our timing was perfect,” said Haban who was able to get his son Leo into OVV during the critical period shortly after his cochlear implant.  “Every time I show up at OVV I am so happy,” said the journeyman industrial pattern maker.  “I’m surrounded with nothing but miracles.  The bang for your buck is astronomical.”  The couples’s six year old son Alex, an OVV graduate now mainstreamed into public school was helping other students on his first day of school.  “His teacher has no academic or social concerns about him whatsoever,” related his father.

Future students at OVV will benefit from significant improvements in the new OVV school in Loveland which will be able to accommodate up to 80 children.  “We will have an audiology suite and modified acoustically appropriate classrooms,” Sentelik said.  “There will be seven layers of dry wall so there will be no sound seepage into other classrooms.  Classrooms need to be especially quiet so profoundly hearing impaired children can hear as clearly as possible,” stressed the OVV director.

These specially designed rooms, plus meeting the standards set by the American Speech and Hearing Association, add significantly to the cost of the new building, explained Sentelik who is in the midst of a $1.5 million capital campaign.

As daunting as the building cost may seem, Sentelik believes it’s worth the effort.  “We have a wonderful mission.  What better mission that teaching deaf children to talk and raise the bar for children to make them independent.  Who wouldn’t want that?”   Added Muething, “I have seen many encouraging breakthroughs in pediatrics but the outcomes reached by these children and their families are incredible.”

For information call 791-1458.  Scholarships are available.