River School and hearing-impaired children

[Anonymous]

We are trying to decide whether to send our 3-year-old to the River School. He has 30% hearing loss in one ear--doesn't need a hearing aid and functions perfectly fine in his current school, although he is significantly speech-delayed. I am curious as to whether current parents have found that the hearing-loss children are "stigmatized" in any way or whether you think it would be a good fit for a child with minor hearing-related issues.

[Anonymous]

Long time River School parent here, seems like a great fit to me. They have a masters level educated speech pathologist in each class who works with the kids through the whole day & esp during 'mouth time' where they practice sounds and early literacy. You should contact the school with follow up questions - I know they have other hearing impaired children (ie, not only children who are deaf / who have cochlear implants). Most of the children in the class are often highly verbal, so I would think that would really help with a child like yours who you said is speech delayed - I think you would be very happy with how much his speech progressed and how closely they work with your child on helping them, etc. It has been great for our kids - one of whom was a very verbal child and the other who was a very late talker but who really thrived and has an amazing vocab now!
Good luck -