Read this today...

"Although the development of spoken language is a major purpose of implantation 
(Geers, 2006; Incesulu et al., 2003), not all parents value this outcome to the same extent. 
Archbold et al. (2006) reported that 25% of parents who responded to their survey did not 
expect their child to talk after implantation, and 13% felt neutrally. Furthermore, 73% of 
parents agreed or strongly agreed that signing support is helpful for a considerable time after 
implantation."


Very interesting! Truth be told, be would have been in that 25% when Miss Kat was implanted. We never expected her to learn to hear or speak.

Children of Deaf Adults

Tonight we headed out to a Deaf community party (which we do about once a month...gotta keep up with our signing!) We played some fun games, and Miss Kat really enjoys hanging out with the other kids. They are, of course, all hearing, but have Deaf parents. (There have been a few deaf kids that have come in the time we have been going, but mostly, just CODAs.) Tonight was no different, Miss Kat participates in the games until she and the other kids grow bored and they head off to another part of the room to play hide and seek and tag. So, she is chasing a friend around and one of her processors go flying off. Another kid picks it up and hands it to her, and they all look at it and ask "What is that for?" Miss Kat explains that it is her implant and she uses it to hear.....uh...so, you guys have been playing together for 2 hours and you didn't notice that she was deaf? It took her showing you her processor and actually saying it for you to figure it out?

What a world!

"Why can you hear without implants on?"

This was the question Miss Kat posed to us last night, as she was laying down at bedtime. It is a very important question, so we spent some time going over it.

First, I pulled up this picture

I then explained how typical hearing works. I said that the sound travels in the ear, vibrates the ear drum and then stimulates the hair cells ("Yuck, I have hair inside my ear?", "No, it just is called hair, it isn't actually hair", "Oh good.") and then the cochlea sends that information to the nerve. 

Then I showed her this picture

I said that Mom and Dad have hair cells like the picture on the left, but hers don't work well, like the picture on the left. I said that since her hair cells weren't able to hear, we got her an implant.

Then we looked at these pictures

We talked about the different parts of the internal implant and how the electrode is inside her inner ear. Then she wanted to better understand how it got there. She asked about the surgery, and what exactly the doctor did to get the implant inside her ear. So, we watched this

Miss Kat thought that the surgery was "gross" and that she was glad that she didn't have to do it! (Guess CI surgeon is off the list of possible vocations!)

Overall, I thought that she understood very well, and asked a lot of great questions. I know this will not be the last time we discuss the matter, but she wasn't upset or sad at all. She knows that she is deaf and that Mom and Dad are hearing. She knows lots of Deaf and deaf kids and adults, but she also knows that most people she encounters in the world are hearing, and she isn't and never will be.

ClearVoice!

Miss Kat had a MAPing yesterday, and she is now using HiRes S120 and....ClearVoice!!

At first, she really didn't like it. Ok, she said "I hate it". That was not unexpected. She doesn't deal with change well! In fact, she refused to wear it out of the audiology booth. Again, that's fine. When we got home, we discussed it. We told her that they changed it so that she could hear better when it was loud. She understood, but still didn't love the idea of wearing it. So, we made a deal. We would work it just like when she went bilateral. We changed the program at bedtime and let her lay out on the couch with us. She was able to listen to the TV, and have her brain process the sounds, and get used to the input, but she doesn't actually have to hear it.

It worked great. This morning she put them on with no fight at all. In fact, her teacher said she didn't have any idea. So, now we wait for her to acclimate and do some testing (her baseline was 88% on the LNT) and see if she improves!