METAIRIE -- When parents learn that their child can't hear, they must make the decision to use new technology and education to help them hear and talk, or teach the children sign language and lip reading.

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Instructors at the Oral School work to improve the child's communication skills.

However, one local school is helping many families make that decision even easier.

At first glance, New Orleans Oral School looks like a standard pre-K classroom full of young, energetic kids. And although the kids are considered deaf, the instructors do not use lip reading or sign language.

The school, located on West Esplanade in Metairie, works with children up to six years of age with the goal of getting them proficient enough in language to send them to a regular school where they can be independent.

“It is a parent’s choice. I personally come from the philosophy that whatever works for that particular child, I think it's an individual decision,” said Dana Hubbard, a teacher at the school. “Oral communication is not for every child, but I believe that signing communication isn't as well.”

One of the requirements is that all children use hearing aids or even the cochlear implant – a device for the deaf that is surgically implanted in the ear so that nerves can send sound to the brain. This type of learning has come out of the newer digital technology that now makes it possible for deaf people to hear.

The implants can run as much as $50,000 and insurance will pay for them only in some cases.

“A child that is identified early and gets a cochlear implant and has all of the proper therapy and intervention, can grow up to be a successful communicator just like any other child,” Hubbard said.

Five-year-old Benjamin Aust got his implant when he was 18-months-old after an intestinal disease nearly took his life. The antibiotics that saved him, also made him deaf.

“The thing that I thought first was about all the things he would miss; the sounds. That he would never hear me say, ‘I love you,’ that he would never hear music, those kinds of things,” said Elizabeth, Benjamin’s mother.

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Now Benjamin can hear the words and understand their meaning. He’s able to carry a conversation and speak like everyone else.

Benjamin’s mother no longer worries that he’ll have difficulty adapting to mainstream schools.

“We may ask for some preferential seating, where he would be up front, but I don't even know that he needs that,” she said.

Benjamin’s mother said she’s even found herself underestimating her own son.

“I found myself doing that with Benjamin, expecting less because of his deafness, and I’ve had to teach myself not to do that because I’m handicapping him where he’s not,” she said.

New Orleans Oral School also has experts who will go to the home to help parents learn how to help their children.

“Our mission is to get the kids early or get them as soon as we can and work with them on closing that language gap that occurs,” Hubbard said.