Stimulating Interaction

How do you get an infant with profound hearing loss to interact with you when you can not get his attention through sound?

It is natural for all babies - hearing and not - to make fun little cooing noises. Babies born with hearing loss do not get any reinforcement of the noises they make, so eventually over time these cooing noises will die out. It is important to try to interact and "talk" to your infant as much as possible to encourage this interaction. We found several things helpful:

We would get really close to Drew's face and make eye contact with him. In order to achieve this I would lay him on my lap, hold his hands in mine and put my face down close to his. As soon as he would look in my eyes I would instantly start talking to him. Then I would smile, make funny faces, play peek-a-boo to keep him talking, laughing, playing. Drew made some really good "ahh" and "goo" sounds when he was around three months old, and I suspect all parents of children with hearing loss have heard similar sounds from their child at a young age.

A Baby play mirror is an excellent toy to help stimulate interaction for an infant, especially one with hearing loss. If you sit the mirror next to your baby and turn his head so that he is looking at his reflection in the mirror the conversation begins! Drew would talk to himself all the time in that mirror. It was the best thing our Parent/Infant Educator ever told us to buy! We got so much use out of it - and Drew loved it. It is also good when the baby begins to push up because you can sit it in front of them and reward them for holding their head up. Drew really enjoyed this toy.



Drew was always attracted to lights. I think that because he couldn't hear he had a heightened sense of sight. So, if we were having problems getting him to look at us and interact with us because of the lights we would either move him or turn it off to get his attention.

We found Baby Einstein videos to be an excellent way to stimulate Drew's interaction with things around him. Drew loved watching the colors and dancing animals on the screen. I don't think he got anything in terms of auditory stimulation, but I know that he was interacting with it and would make noises of excitement.

Cause and effect toys are great for stimulating interaction as your baby gets a little older. Anything that rewards the baby for an action. Anything with a cause and effect. This helps a baby understand what will happen with conversation - you say something, I respond. Some of our favorite cause and effect toys are a spin top, busy ball popper and busy gears toy.

I actually think that it is quite amazing how well deaf and hearing impaired babies do at interacting with their environment, at least in my (limited) experience. My guess is that as a child gets older this interaction would die out. All the more reason for early intervention and appropriate amplification.

Please

Read this. Then you will understand why I feel the need to comment here.

. . .

Drew's Dad stumbled upon this blog post today about "Turn On My Ears" and he made the mistake tonight of letting me read it. I can not ignore this blog post, and feel the need to comment here.

I can imagine how "startled" I would feel if I simply read a few posts of someones blog and then proceeded to make assumptions and assertions from simply a few pieces of information.

First, if you would like to know where we came up with the name "Turn On My Ears," you can read this post. I personally like the name, as we are going to have the opportunity to take our perfect little boy and turn on his hearing, a moment that we will be able to witness (and video tape) for the first time!

Secondly, we started this blog when Drew was a little over six weeks old in November, 2006. He is, as I write this post, a little over seven months old, awaiting his simultaneous cochlear implant surgery. He will be eight months at the time of surgery and nine months when he is "turned on" for the first time. He will be eleven months old on August 24, 2007.

If you would like to know how a cochlear implant works (note it is cochlear implant, not cochlea implant), then you can read this.

Furthermore, we have taken all of the advice and education we have received from the specialists that are working with Drew. As we have learned from our teacher of the deaf through the Regional Infant Hearing Program, our therapists through Auditory Oral Children's Center and Columbus Children's Hospital, there is a lot of research that shows sign language is a great bridge to oral communication if established at birth. If you are interested in the communication, a.k.a. sign language, we have established to date with Drew, then read this.

Also, we have been quite clear and have understood from the very beginning that the cochlear implants alone will not allow Drew to communicate orally. It will take years of hard work and therapy to ensure that Drew will communicate orally and mainstream with his hearing peers. You can read posts on this subject here, here and here.

More than anything, Drew's Dad and I have made the decision to have Drew join the hearing world. We are his parents and we have to make decisions for both of our children that will give them the best opportunity to be all they can in this lifetime. We want him to hear us say "I love you". We want him to hear his big sister call him "Dew". We want our dog Eddie to wake him up with a bark. But more than anything we just want him to have all the abilities he needs to do what he wishes in this life. And "Turning On His Ears" will do that.

Communicating with Drew

It's hard to believe that Drew is over six months old! These months have just flown by, partly because every day and week is consumed with appointments for Drew. I was encouraged this week when talking with the mother of an implanted four year old. She told me that her life is back to normal now - hardly any visits to doctors or therapists. There is hope! The good news is that our little boy continues to grow and with each days gets closer and closer to hearing!

We took Drew for an appointment with his mapping audiologist through Columbus last week. She put Drew in the sound booth again. He showed noticeable reaction to sound at 60 db again at several different frequencies while aided. He is getting minimal benefit from his hearing aids, but at least we know he is getting something. All of our evaluations are complete and Drew will be approved as a candidate for his cochlear implants at the May Cochlear Implant Team meeting. We are hoping to go into that meeting with a surgery date already on the calendar, so keep your fingers crossed.

We are trying daily to help facilitate Drew's communication. Our house is very loud these days, as the volume of Drew's talking is on a constant incline. It's funny how use to noise we have become, but I am sure that his loudness gets on the nerves of others. At this point, however, we are so happy that he is still vocalizing, since it has been almost seven months without him hearing any conversational chatter.

We also think that Drew is really starting to understand the sign language we are using with him. Every night when we are ready to give him a bath we say, "Drew, it's time for your bath." Then we sign, "bath." Whenever we do the sign for bath, Drew gets this huge smile on his face! It is so cute and we really do think that he is understanding us. I also think that he is starting to recognize the signs "eat" and "milk" together to know that he is about to be fed. He will stop crying when he sees these signs. While I am not a huge proponent of sign language (because we are choosing an oral deaf education approach), I do think that it will help to bridge the gap in Drew's communication while he is learning to listen and communicate with his implants.