Living Well for Teens and My World Tools Presented at EAA

By Amanda Farah Cox

The Ida Institute presented the Living Well and My World tools at this year’s Educational Audiology Association (EAA) conference in Orlando, Florida. Project Manager Ena Nielsen gave the presentation, “How Was School Today?: Addressing the Daily Communication Challenges of Children and Teenagers With Hearing Loss,” along with Ida Fellows Eileen Rall and Carrie Spangler.

The Friday early-morning presentation began with Eileen explaining the socio-emotional development of children and how narrative-based counseling can help them. This was followed by a screening of the ethnographic film about Kathleen and her family, which led in to the presentation about My World. A video of Eileen using the My World tool in a session set an example for participants to fill out documentation forms and familiarize themselves with the tool.

Carrie Spangler then presented how she uses the Living Well tool with her teen and tween patients. She presented the Teens and Tweens Dilemma Game and the photos for the new Teens and Tweens Living Well tool. The quick tool version of Living Well for Teens and Tweens can be found here.

After presenting Living Well, attendees paired off to role-play how situations could be handled differently, recommended communication strategies, and what the next steps should be for key people in the situation.

The morning was rounded out with participants being asked to consider the three most important points they had learned during the presentation.

Thank you to EAA, Eileen, and Carrie for all of your hard work!