About

Hello and welcome to Hearing Spanglish. My name is Carrie Spangler and I am excited to share my journey of becoming a cochlear implant recipient. I want to share a little historical information so that you can all relate to my upcoming journey. I am currently in my mid forties. When I was born, universal newborn hearing screening was not something that was even thought of yet! I did have complications at birth resulting in lack of oxygen. Fast forward a few years and my speech and language skills were behind. After many visits to many different doctors ( and my parents continuously questioning my hearing) I was identified with a mild sloping to profound hearing loss in both ears at the age of 4. This is where my journey with hearing aids began.

My entire family is hearing and spoken English is our native, first language as a family. I attended my neighborhood school and was the only child with hearing aids at the school (or at least that I knew of!). Certainly was difficult to be the one and only at times!

After high school, I attended Bowling Green State University and graduated with an undergraduate degree in Communication Disorders. I attended the University of Akron for graduate school and earned my Masters in Audiology. In 2005, I earned my clinical doctorate in Audiology from the Arizona School of Health Sciences.

Being an audiologist with hearing loss brings a personal and professional perspective to hearing. Over the past few years, I have noted that it is more difficult to hear and understand especially when the group is larger and the environment is compromised. I kept telling myself that maybe I wasn’t paying good enough attention. Testing confirmed otherwise. My hearing had declined some and my auditory discrimination scores had decreased.

This blog is MY journey towards the cochlear implant process. Keep reading and visiting to share in this journey as I venture through this process. I hope that by sharing, you will be encouraged and willing to be an encourager! Welcome to Hearing Spanglish!