Joe is a fifth-grader in Clarke’s K-8 Program. He has profound bilateral hearing loss and uses bilateral cochlear implants to access sound.

“Joe has been working hard to improve his listening and spoken language since joining the program in the fall of 2020,” explains Lila, a Clarke teacher of the deaf and speech-language pathologist assistant at Clarke Northampton. “He independently tries to incorporate vocabulary targets into his conversational speech and concentrates on including all syllables in his spoken words.”

He also has fun involving plush toy monkeys in his Clarke speech lessons! Joe was thinking about the health and safety of his monkey friends and made clear masks for them. Clear masks are used at Clarke during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are especially helpful during speech sessions, because they provide full access to communication, including emotional expression.