Language Assesment

Drew had his bi-weekly therapy with his teacher through the Regional Infant Hearing Program yesterday. My Mom took him to the appointment, as she does every time. Drew's teacher is excellent and always sends me a detailed report of the session, and my Mom will always let me know how Drew did and tell me exactly what we will be working on in the coming weeks. The report I received this week was excellent:

Auditory Objectives/Materials Used:
Detect Ling sounds with conditioned response/Hoop and Box of Chips
Discriminate 3 environmental sounds/2 each: Wrist Bells, Drum, Tube
Discriminate Ling and/or LtoL sounds/Ling objects and cards, bus, plane, firetruck and monkey, sheep, cat w/matching bags

Child’s Responses:
1. Detected all twice. Imitated /oo/.
2. Discriminated each one once.
3. Would not attend with Ling objects. Used two items at a time w/bags. He discriminated the bus, firetruck, monkey and cat by looking at the item or the bag. He looked at the cat upon hearing the word rather than the sound.

Language and Speech Objectives/Maerials Used:
Imitate Ling and/or LtoL sounds/Finger Puppets, Ling objects, bus, plane, firetruck, monkey, sheep, cat
Associate words/phrases with actions/Little People: mommy, daddy, baby w/chair, bed, tub, car, swing, spinner

Child’s Responses:
I didn’t use the finger puppets. See below for a list of imitated and spontaneous utterances.
Spontaneously used a lot of phrases with the correct objects (see below). He did put daddy in chair w/ “sit down”, put grandma in swing w/ “swing grandma”, and pushed the swing w/ “push, push”.

Cognitive Objectives/Materials Used:
1. Match object-to-picture/Objects w/matching bags
2. Attend to a book/Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? with doll

Child’s Responses:
1. He cooperated with this and put the objects in but did not demonstrate any clear matching.
2. This was the last thing we did and he was tired and ready to get down.

And probably the most exciting piece of the report...

Spontaneous Utterances:

ahhhhhhh upon seeing the airplane
owl upon seeing the owl (new)
thank you when I gave him things
roun-n-roun upon seeing the spinner
eeeeeee when playing w/slide
hi when Grandma walked in room

Imitated Utterances:

out
sit down
go
buh, buh w/bus
aa, aa, aa, w/sheep
dat for cat
heyo for hello w/phone
ee, ee w/monkey

Drew is making tremendous progress and we feel like we are on the verge of a huge language explosion! He is using acutal words and putting them with objects. Ball is by far his favorite, but he has also used eat, Dada, PaPa and even Mama appropriately! Last night while playing he correctly made a gallaping noise with his tounge when asked, "What sound does a horse make?" He also has an excellent "quack" now when asked, "What sound does a duck make?" This morning he followed this direction: "Drew, please put the diaper in the diaper champ." I was amazed. I get so excited when he does these things. We enjoyed some nice hi-fives after he accomplished that task. (He loves to give hi-fives!)

I also completed a language assesment for Drew. Drew's Dad and I responded to a series of questions on things Drew can do both expressively and receptively. At sixteen months of age, hearing age of seven months, Drew measured at twelve months of age in both categories. Although, I have to say I peeked at the next level and he is doing many of the things in the 14-16 month category, like attempting to imitate "thank you." I believe that when we next do this assesment, in six months, that he will be very close to being age appropriate for his lanugage development.

I know that there are a lot of parents reading this blog, many of which are parents of children newly diagnosed with hearing loss. Some of you have even introduced yourself! I have had a lot of questions regarding early implantation, insurance coverage, simultaneous implants, etc. I really feel that Drew is doing so well because his deafness was caused by Connexin 26 and because he was identified early, implanted early and implanted simultaneously. If you feel like hearing aids are not providing your baby with enough amplification and feel a cochlear implant is in his or her future, be persistent! While having simultaneous implants in all children is not possible (given the geneology of the loss, malformation in the cochlea, known balance disorders), implantation under 12 months of age is possible and the results are amazing. I am so thankful that we put together a team for Drew that believed in getting him implanted as young as possible. The results are truly amazing.

Why Cochlear?

Drew's Dad and I have been playing around with Blogger and were experimenting with the survey feature, hence the "Which brand of C.I. Did you Choose?" question on the sidebar. It's a little coincidental since Amy recently left a comment asking why we chose Cochlear as the brand of implant for Drew. She is trying to decide which brand to choose for her daughters upcoming surgery, so I thought I would share "Why Cochlear?"

• Cochlear is the brand that our surgeon and audiologist have worked with the most. Therefore, the surgeon has inserted the most Cochlear arrays and our audiologist has the most programming experience with the Cochlear brand. We took this in high regard. We did not feel that it would be good to choose a brand of implant that they were unfamiliar with. We know that our implant team has a lot of relationships with Cochlear, as has been evidenced in the audiologist from Cochlear attending Drew's mapping sessions, on occasion.


• Cochlear is the brand of choice of Dr. Jacques Herzog and all other surgerons we met with. We hold Dr. Herzog's opinion in high regard, and that weighed on our decision.


• We liked the bodyworn processor and were aware of the impending babyworn launch. We thought that having the microphones on Drew's ears was vital for developing sound localization, so we were very impressed with the Snugfit for chilren, to help keep the processors on their ears. We liked the rechargable battery option for both configurations (I do not know about the battery options for Med-El or Advanced Bionics).


• We like Cochlear's Customer Service and their commitment to future techonology. When we discovered that Cochlear has a commitment that all current recepients of their product can take advantage of new product introductions we were thrilled. Knowing that processor and software upgrades will be available for their current paitents is wonderful. In fact, we are awaiting the current software upgrade that will program the internal device such that we never put a processor on the wrong ear again. Yeah, no more tears!

Ultimatly the equipment and customer service can only do so much. If you do not have appropriate mapping or therapy post implantation, the recepient is not going to excel with his/her implant.

So the question is, readers, which brand of implant did you choose (for yourself or your child), and why? Let's help Amy out with this difficult decision.

F-U-N!

With a capital F, U and N! We are having so much FUN watching Drew's language develop, both receptively and expressively.

I was getting ready for work on Wednesday morning and stopped by the kitchen table to say goodbye to Drew, his dad and sister while they were eating breakfast together. I noticed that Drew did not have any milk to drink with his pancakes. I said, "Drew, would you like a cup of milk?" He instantly started vocalizing with his "I want something" whine while reaching for his sister's cup of milk. Drew's Dad and I know he understands that concept!

In addition, the number of words that he is using is growing. He is constantly repeating things we say and is actually starting to use the words in everyday play. Today he said, "ball" and then looked at Daddy and said, "Da da." The other night I was talking about needing to eat something and Drew started saying, "Eat." Ball, Pa Pa, Da Da, I don't and no are all words he now uses regularly, in addition to "uh oh," which he has said for months. He will also say "ahhh" anytime he picks up his play airplanes and "ooo" for the choo-choo sound of a train. The most exciting times are when we are not directly talking to him and he picks up what we are saying. Incidental learning is so important for language development, and we think Drew is doing very well in that area!

We're still working on the /sh/ and /s/ sounds, and those are taking a while longer to come about. Although he is making progress, saying the /s/ sound the other night as we played with a toy snake, we still have work to do in that area.

Each day with Drew is so exciting, as we get to share with him our language. I get chills at least once a day when he turns to look at me after I call his name. I love listening to him babble. And I love the new words each day brings. Now if we could work on Ma Ma...why is that the last word babies say?

Teardrops

This song makes me smile whenever I hear it:



Click Here for Lyrics.

Drew Walks: Check

Drew Talks: We're working on it!

Beautiful Girlfriend: In the distant, distant future!

Did I Hear You Correctly?

I am naive. I admit it. I did not think that we would have to deal with ignorant people so early in Drew's life. I knew the time would come with others would look at him differently, but I thought the days of teasing and such would come in elementary and middle school.

On Saturday our friends called to see if we would join them for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. Drew's Dad was working, but I happily agreed. I love the opportunity to get out of the house when I'm watching the kids by myself.

We were seated right away and immediately waited on. The waiter instantly noticed Drew's "different" ears. Instead of asking politely or not mentioning them at all, he said, "What's wrong with his ears?" Now, that wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't said in the tone in which he said it. Having four impressionable children sitting at the table with me, I could not tell him what I really wanted to say, so I just said, "He is deaf. This helps him hear." We all restrained ourselves well, but I know my friends were equally as mad as me. Oh, if only I could have told him what I was really thinking. I wonder if he liked his tip?

Then, later that night I found myself in another uncomfortable situation. We attended the wedding of some friends from college. It was great to see Drew's Dads' fraternity brothers that we had not seen in years! We enjoyed catching up with friends from Denver, San Diego, Chicago and New York. It's hard to keep in touch with everyone these days. Many of our friends did not even know that Drew was born with profound hearing loss, so I found myself explaining our situation on more than one occasion.

I was telling a couple of our friends all about Drew's hearing loss and it's cause (Connexin 26) when I was once again confronted with an ignorant, and that is being nice, person. A friend of a friend was listening in on our conversation. I was explaining all about Drew's cochlear implants and our friends were fascinated by the technology and how well Drew is doing. Just as I was explaining that Drew's Dad and I carry a recessive gene for hearing loss the friend of a friend says, while turning his ear to the conversation, "What's that, I can't hear you. I'm deaf."

It took every ounce of me not to punch him in the face. I looked at him and said, "I find your comment to be very, and I mean very, offensive." Then I turned and tried to continue my conversation with true friends, but I was unable to even remember what I was talking about. He made everyone completely uncomfortable and ruined and otherwise enjoyable conversation.

I understand that there are ignorant people in the world. I am used to being stared at in the grocery store, at Lowe's and at Target. It really doesn't bother me, and I enjoy the times when people will actually ask me about Drew. I enjoy telling people how blessed we are that Drew can hear. But I have a hard time with arrogant, ignorant people and their asinine comments.