We are starting to really up our speech session since Miss Kat is now activated and (crossing fingers) hearing well. The biggest hurdle is that be get services at the university level and semester break is in two weeks. We will be without a therapist for almost a month. Plus, the school SLP isn't on board with us (she seems to be in a whole different world, but, alas, that is a story for another time) so we are squeezing in as many appointments as we can and working at home as well.
Miss Kat had two speech appointments this week, one on Tuesday, the next on Wednesday. It looks like we are starting from scratch. Tuesday was tough. She was not vocalizing much and she was having trouble even identifying the Ling sounds. I was concerned but I knew this would happen. The therapist had pictures of three words (boat, table, banana, I believe) and Miss Kat was supposed to point to the one she heard. She got less than 1/3 right. Before surgery she was getting 100% with 6 phrases. Yuck, this is a huge step back. It is frustrating, but we knew this would happen and we just need to be patient.
Now for Wednesday. Miss Kat's session started the same way as the day before, but this time she did better with her Lings. She is still mixing up "ooo" and "mmm" but I guess that is fairly common with CI users (thanks for the info cicircle!). But then we moved on to the words again. Miss Kat was working hard, but I was so depressed. Can she really do this? It seems like an impossible task to sit in therapy and try to teach her to hear every single word in the English language! This will never work! Then she started doing better. She was able to hear the difference between the three words 100% again. Then the therapist did the phrases, 100% again. Well, at least we are back to where we were...6 days post activation! I guess Miss Kat is doing well, it just seems like an impossible hill to climb.
Overall, Miss Kat has gotten very quiet. She is no longer singing to herself day and night. She will imitate in speech, but the constant noise is gone. That is something we didn't expect. She is also IN LOVE with music. She listens to it and dances again. She hasn't done that in at least a year, (since she lost a bunch more hearing), and she is still experimenting with new sounds. She excited each time she hears something new.
1 comment:
I don't have a CI. But I do know that when I get new hearing aids and I need to process sound in a new way I become very quite. I won't speak at all, and I am 18! Once I adjust it's fine though. Give her some time to figure out what her voice sounds like now and I am sure she will go back to vocalizing if that is what she wants to be doing!
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