Late to the Party

In the United States, late-identified hearing loss continues to be an underdiscussed, inconsistently researched, and underfunded medical issue that is leading children into developmental crises. Parents often face an avalanche of emotions and are confronted with the harsh truth that their child’s delays, poor academic performance, or social-emotional challenges could have been prevented with earlier diagnosis and timely access to language, technology, and services.Late to the Party: Extraordinary Stories of Hope After Late-Identified Hearing Loss shares the experiences of sixteen families. Through intimate interviews, parent advocate and author Valerie James Abbott reveals the grueling paths that led each family up to the moment their child’s hearing loss was confirmed. Abbott guides readers through the difficult decisions that followed, the unexpected barriers the families encountered while navigating complex systems alone, and the lessons they unearthed along the way. These are not just stories of resilience-they are urgent calls for change. This one-of-a-kind collection bridges the gap between data, research, and lived experience. Each family’s journey illustrates what happens when screening safeguards fail, risk factors are overlooked, parent concerns are dismissed, and doctors pass the ball. This book is a call to improve the frequency, quality, and accessibility of early childhood hearing testing so that all children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, regardless of the age of onset, are identified early and can thrive alongside their hearing peers. 6