Source: losangeles.cbslocal.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LOS ANGELES (CBS)<\/strong> \u2014 A bill requiring hearing aids for babies and young children is one step closer to passage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill cleared the state assembly and is now headed to the California senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CBS2\/KCAL9\u2019s Randy Paige spoke to one family at a hearing clinic about the impact of the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He listens to a 5-year-old girl as she gushes about one of her favorite things \u2014 ice cream!<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI like vanilla and chocolate but do you know this kind of ice cream\u2026,\u201d says Zoe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re witnessing a miracle and it\u2019s made possible by the tiny piece \nof technology tucked inside the little girl\u2019s ear \u2014 a hearing aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Zoe was diagnosed with a severe hearing loss as a baby, it was a\n race against time to get her fitted for hearing aids. With each passing\n day, her brain was missing out on critical auditory clues about the \nworld around her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was unable to hear the frequencies of her own mother\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you have an infant and you have all these aspirations for them,\n Rhodes scholar, or whatever, and you don\u2019t even know if they\u2019re going \nto be able to talk it\u2019s just so painful,\u201d says Zoe\u2019s mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe first sIx months are critical so that the brain can start making\n sense of what all these sounds are and what it means,\u201d says Cathleen \nMathes, president and CEO of the John Tracy Center, a nationally \nrecognized clinic for families with children who are deaf or hard of \nhearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mathes was also Zoe\u2019s therapist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paige asks what would have happened if Zoe hadn\u2019t received her hearing aids early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt would be very difficult for her to gain spoken language skills,\u201d \nsays Mathes, who acknowledges without the early intervention Zoe would \nbe unable to speak in long, full sentences, \u201cthe way we heard her speak \ntoday,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zoe\u2019s mom says she had to borrow used hearing aids from the Tracy \nClinic \u2014 at first \u2014 and it was a financial struggle to come up with the \n$8,000 she needed to buy Zoe\u2019s aids a short time later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201d I saw my bank account go from positive to negative pretty fast,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s because health insurance companies in California are not required to cover the cost of hearing aids in children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s estimated that only one in 10 families have private insurance that has a policy that covers hearing aids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That could soon change. A parent-led initiative has now passed the state assembly and headed to the California senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If AB598 is passed into law, it would require health insurance companies to include coverage for children\u2019s hearing aids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI actually think about the light coming through the window and the dust settling in the room,\u201d says Zoe\u2019s mom<\/p>\n\n\n\n She looks at a photo \u2014 taken on the day Zoe first heard her mother\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom about 10 feet away, when they turned on her hearing aids I \ncalled her name and she lit up. And I knew that she was on. So I said \nZoe, and she turned around and she looked at me and smiled and I just \nknew that we were connected and I was, I just I can\u2019t tell you how \nexcited I was to see her and know that we were going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now nearly five years later, Zoe carries the promise of all of \nthe other children who need the key to unlock the sounds of the outside \nworld \u2014 but many may not be able to afford it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Backers of the bill are optimistic about the future. They say if it \nsails through the senate, Govenor Newsom has shown that he cares about \nthe needs of young children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: losangeles.cbslocal.com LOS ANGELES (CBS) \u2014 A bill requiring hearing aids for babies and young children is one step closer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62,449,452,451,448,447,453,450],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aids-hiv","tag-aids","tag-babies","tag-california","tag-children","tag-hearing","tag-requiring","tag-senate","tag-young"],"yoast_head":"\n