ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO – In the heart of central Albuquerque, not far from Milne Stadium and Presbyterian Hospital, sits the Presbyterian Ear Institute: a small building that made a huge impact on a local girl’s family, education, and life.
Jazzmyne Castillo is 17 years old, speaks clear, fluent English, and is deaf.
When she was first born, Jazzmyne failed the hearing screening 3 times and was sent to the Presbyterian Ear Institute for a final test. Patricia Zuniga, her mother, who I spoke to over the phone a few days before Thanksgiving, has been waiting for an opportunity to shout out this institution that made such a positive impact on her daughter’s life.
During our conversation, Patricia emphasized the impression PEI had on her right from the get-go. She recalled a specific memory from an initial tour she was given, and the moment she decided she wanted her daughter to attend the school. Upon walking into a classroom, she saw three little girls. “It was amazing,” she said. “They were around 9-years old I think, just singing and dancing. I thought, I want that for my daughter.”
The Ear Institute
Located in central Albuquerque near the Presbyterian Hospital, the Ear Institute is a non-profit provider of a range of hearing healthcare services, including hearing aids, cochlear implants, and a speech and language program, according to their website.
What is so unique about PEI is their speech and language program. There are other education opportunities for deaf and hearing-impaired youth, such as the New Mexico School for the Deaf, but they focus primarily on the learning of sign language. “Not a lot of people know sign language,” said Patricia. Giving her child the opportunity to learn to speak, rather than challenging her with ASL, a limited way to communicate to others, was hugely important to her as a mother.
When Jazzmyne was a year old, she received a cochlear implant, and 3 days after that, Patricia and her daughter returned to PEI.
Jazzmyne attended the school at Presbyterian Ear Institute from the age of 1 until she was 5-and-a-half years old. In that time, she received speech therapy, learning how to talk clearly and fluently.
“Most people don’t even know she’s deaf,” her mother told me. “She learned so much from there.” PEI did so well with Jazzmyne in their program, and both her and Patricia are eternally grateful.
The Presbyterian Ear Institute was founded in 1987 as a pediatric cochlear implant program and expanded to include the Oral School in 1990. They are the only school in New Mexico that teaches deaf and hearing-impaired children to learn and use spoken language.