Meet the Open Arms team: Mary Beth Dean

Emmory Shipley, Communications Coordinator

Mary Beth Dean, M.S. Ed., is an Early Interventionist in our Little Ears audiology department at Open Arms Children’s Health. She joined the team because of our facility’s mission of comprehensive care. She is proud to work with Little Ears because of their diligence in providing high quality services for every child.

To Mary, the most rewarding part of her job is when she and a parent have been working on a skill with a child, and the child is able to show them that they have mastered that skill – such as localizing a sound. She is happy to see children with hearing loss grow in their communication abilities.

Mary received a Master of Education in Deaf Education from the University of Kansas. She has worked with children with hearing loss for more than 35 years. She has worked as an itinerant teacher and preschool/kindergarten teacher in public schools. She has also been a preschool teacher, listening and spoken language therapist, and early intervention therapist in private schools in five states. She taught Deaf Education at both undergraduate and graduate levels, focusing on speech development. Currently, she works as an Early Interventionist with First Steps, and also sees school aged children for language and academic work. She is available for consulting with regular classroom teachers who have a child with hearing loss in their classroom.

Outside of work, Mary enjoys travelling, reading, and spending time with her granddaughter.