Peter is now six months old, and he has had his hearing aids for exactly three months. Today we did the first sound booth test. I had never been in a sound booth before. It is a small, square, totally soundproof box, with sound absorbing walls, ceiling and floor. Entering I saw a chair, a window to the right looking out on the audiologist, and speakers with animals in boxes on top. Right in front of us was a clear box with a mechanical puppy. It could sit, bark, and make walking movements. It was supposed to "center" Peter's attention. On the left was a dark box with a rabbit who would light up and play a drum set. On the right was a drum-playing elephant.
I held Peter on my lap, and T. would make the dog move/bark, then play a whooshing noise from one of the speakers. The corresponding Animal would light up and bang away on cymbals and drums, too. Peter did turn to look at the lit up boxes, but just because he could see them. We did the test for about 10 minutes.
T. explained that some of this was just to teach Peter to associate sound, response and the reward of seeing the animals. She thought she saw him startle a little to the sound of her voice at 70 dB, and some eye-movement in response to the 1000 mHz noise. But she couldn't reproduce the responses. Even so, she thought it was better than expected! It's just another tiny point in the complete picture of his hearing. We go back in a month to add another point.
Monday, October 22, 2012
A Tale of Two Schools
Two weeks ago we visited Jean Weingarten Peninsula Oral Deaf School, and last week we went to the California School for the Deaf in Fremont. Both of these schools had really friendly staff, nice kids, and classrooms full of fun stuff. The schools have completely different target audiences, and very different approaches.
The Oral School, Jean Weingarten, serves primarily birth to age 5, and aims to mainstream kids by first grade. They are mostly a toddler and preschool program, and their older students were more special needs or late-diagnosed kids. The classes there were all really small, and I can understand when you are trying to group people by language skill/age/developmental level you end up with small Groups. The classrooms were small, too, so I guess it all works out. The teachers there are all Teachers of the Deaf, and I saw lots of positive, encouraging interactions with the students. I got to see the speech/listening therapy rooms, which looked fun, but no one was using them when we were there. We got to meet some parents in their Family Center, but one thing we didn't see was the toddler groups in action. There were some babies/toddlers in high chairs having snack, but I guess I kind of missed the explanation on what group they were part of. The toddler area looked like a very well- stocked playroom, and was large, but still cozy. I think I need to see kids who are the same age as Peter will be using the area before I have a complete opinion. My Early Start teacher and I spoke with the head of the school, and she explained how they didn't teach ASL, but that they often used it as a bridge for kids when they got cochlear implants. She signed to Peter several times, and he liked the attention. I don't think that I will be driving the hour trip up there until Peter can actually hear something, but I may enroll him if/when he gets his bionic ears. I need to see the toddler group in the classroom before I make any decisions, though.
The California School for the Deaf used to be on the UC Berkeley campus. They had to move, and got a huge, beautiful campus right across from a huge, beautiful park in Fremont. They serve about 500 students, from age 3-high school graduation. They have larger groups of kids in large light, airy rooms. They had amazing art and projects all over the school. The people we talked to were all wonderful, and all conversations were interpreted in ASL. Peter loved it. All the students seemed engaged and interested. It felt good to be there. I am going to start going to ASL story time once a month, as that is open to the public, as well as their weekly deaf/hoh baby playgroup. I know it is a bit of a drive, but I think giving Peter access to as much language as possible, and peers, is important. Maybe Peter won't care that the other babies are deaf, too, but as he becomes more self aware he might. I also might meet parents who share more of my questions than the parents in the Santa Cruz Early Start play group, where Peter is the only deaf baby attending. My goal is to give Peter a positive early experience with ASL, and hopefully, even if he has Bionic ears, he will continue with it. I hope he doesn't HAVE to attend CSD when he's older, but if did have to or if he chose to, I know he would get a good education there.
I am really lucky to have these two great schools within an hour from my house!
The Oral School, Jean Weingarten, serves primarily birth to age 5, and aims to mainstream kids by first grade. They are mostly a toddler and preschool program, and their older students were more special needs or late-diagnosed kids. The classes there were all really small, and I can understand when you are trying to group people by language skill/age/developmental level you end up with small Groups. The classrooms were small, too, so I guess it all works out. The teachers there are all Teachers of the Deaf, and I saw lots of positive, encouraging interactions with the students. I got to see the speech/listening therapy rooms, which looked fun, but no one was using them when we were there. We got to meet some parents in their Family Center, but one thing we didn't see was the toddler groups in action. There were some babies/toddlers in high chairs having snack, but I guess I kind of missed the explanation on what group they were part of. The toddler area looked like a very well- stocked playroom, and was large, but still cozy. I think I need to see kids who are the same age as Peter will be using the area before I have a complete opinion. My Early Start teacher and I spoke with the head of the school, and she explained how they didn't teach ASL, but that they often used it as a bridge for kids when they got cochlear implants. She signed to Peter several times, and he liked the attention. I don't think that I will be driving the hour trip up there until Peter can actually hear something, but I may enroll him if/when he gets his bionic ears. I need to see the toddler group in the classroom before I make any decisions, though.
The California School for the Deaf used to be on the UC Berkeley campus. They had to move, and got a huge, beautiful campus right across from a huge, beautiful park in Fremont. They serve about 500 students, from age 3-high school graduation. They have larger groups of kids in large light, airy rooms. They had amazing art and projects all over the school. The people we talked to were all wonderful, and all conversations were interpreted in ASL. Peter loved it. All the students seemed engaged and interested. It felt good to be there. I am going to start going to ASL story time once a month, as that is open to the public, as well as their weekly deaf/hoh baby playgroup. I know it is a bit of a drive, but I think giving Peter access to as much language as possible, and peers, is important. Maybe Peter won't care that the other babies are deaf, too, but as he becomes more self aware he might. I also might meet parents who share more of my questions than the parents in the Santa Cruz Early Start play group, where Peter is the only deaf baby attending. My goal is to give Peter a positive early experience with ASL, and hopefully, even if he has Bionic ears, he will continue with it. I hope he doesn't HAVE to attend CSD when he's older, but if did have to or if he chose to, I know he would get a good education there.
I am really lucky to have these two great schools within an hour from my house!
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Sort of Sitting Up!
I plopped Peter on the floor this morning, with me behind him a little bit, and he sat up by himself....for a minute...before slowly folding over onto his legs (gotta love that baby flexibility!). Hooray for PJ! He is growing up so fast, and if my bathroom scale is telling the truth he has more than doubled his birthweight (considering he was born at 9 lbs, that's a lot to double ;)).
All this growing brings the reality of a Cochlear Implant surgery date closer. It's both thrilling and terrifying to think that in six months my litte guy could have bionic ears, but that there is a big surgery between us and that bionic future.
We met with the ENT a little bit ago, and she said she would order genetic tests anytime we wanted to do them, but that there was no requirement for CI candidacy, and no rush. They just require a blood draw, but maybe we'll wait, and just do them the same time we do the CI. We aren't going to have any more kids, but if my husband and I are both carriers of a known hearing gene mutation, our daughters might be also. And we could rule out Ushers, hopefully! In any case the ENT said Peter did not present with any syndrome symptoms, so she wasn't worried.
The ENT also said that she could do simultaneous implants, or do the two surgeries fairly close together - maybe three months apart. I recently read of a protocol where the hospital did them 4-6 weeks apart! That hospital also did the surgeries at about 10 months, so those kids could be hearing binaurally by one year of age! I didn't ask the ENT about doing surgeries that close together. I figure it would be better just to get through it once if you are going to do them so close together! Plus Peter will be closer to 12 months, and as a big, healthy baby I think he would do well with just one longer surgery. And the decision is still a ways off, since she said they schedule surgeries about two months out, so January is when we have to make the call. But it gets closer every day!
Other exciting things coming up: a tour of a local oral deaf school, and the local state School for the Deaf. I am so lucky that two great schools are within an hour of my house. I'll know more about their programs in a couple weeks! Also, Peter's first sound booth test, and his 6-month checkup are both happening this month :)
All this growing brings the reality of a Cochlear Implant surgery date closer. It's both thrilling and terrifying to think that in six months my litte guy could have bionic ears, but that there is a big surgery between us and that bionic future.
We met with the ENT a little bit ago, and she said she would order genetic tests anytime we wanted to do them, but that there was no requirement for CI candidacy, and no rush. They just require a blood draw, but maybe we'll wait, and just do them the same time we do the CI. We aren't going to have any more kids, but if my husband and I are both carriers of a known hearing gene mutation, our daughters might be also. And we could rule out Ushers, hopefully! In any case the ENT said Peter did not present with any syndrome symptoms, so she wasn't worried.
The ENT also said that she could do simultaneous implants, or do the two surgeries fairly close together - maybe three months apart. I recently read of a protocol where the hospital did them 4-6 weeks apart! That hospital also did the surgeries at about 10 months, so those kids could be hearing binaurally by one year of age! I didn't ask the ENT about doing surgeries that close together. I figure it would be better just to get through it once if you are going to do them so close together! Plus Peter will be closer to 12 months, and as a big, healthy baby I think he would do well with just one longer surgery. And the decision is still a ways off, since she said they schedule surgeries about two months out, so January is when we have to make the call. But it gets closer every day!
Other exciting things coming up: a tour of a local oral deaf school, and the local state School for the Deaf. I am so lucky that two great schools are within an hour of my house. I'll know more about their programs in a couple weeks! Also, Peter's first sound booth test, and his 6-month checkup are both happening this month :)
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