We attended two different Cochlear Implant picnics recently. One was in Louisville and was hosted by Cochlear (Brody's Cochlear Implant brand). We were able to meet Scott and Maggie, two reps from the company. Scott is deaf himself and wears bilateral processors. It is always neat to meet adults with them. They can tell you a lot more about their hearing than my students can. Scott is wearing the new N6 processors that Brody will be getting shortly. He was showing us a lot of the new features...very cool! We also got to see that the N6 fits in the aqua bags that help protect it from water so that Brody can go swimming. We were reluctant to go ahead and buy some not knowing if they would fit the new processor. When the processor is in the bags, Brody can still wear them on his ears. It is going to be great for his aqua therapy! The second picnic we went to was at Lexington Hearing and Speech Center in Lexington, KY. I had never been to the facility before even though I have heard good things. Brody has an evaluation with them this Friday to start the listening therapy. The picnic was designed to have the kids entertained while the parents had a "parent education" course. It was taught by their listening specialists and speech therapists. They talked about appropriate toys to build language in the kids and then demonstrated a few. At the end, they raffled some off. Brody got a Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head! They also had representatives for the three cochlear implant brands; Cochlear, Advanced Bionics, and Medel. They split us into groups so that we could visit all of the booths. In our group, everyone's child was already implanted, so they mainly discussed all that they have to offer in resource materials. SO MUCH STUFF!!! If you have a child who is deaf, I strongly urge you to take a look at the three websites. Pretty much all of the resources are free. I am not only going to start using them with Brody, but in my classroom as well!
We went with Grandma and Papa Brown to the Louisville Zoo for the Halloween trick-or-treating on Sunday evening. It was pouring down rain, stopped, and started again. Brody had fun though! He was such a cute little monster!
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| Giving Batman a high five...his new favorite thing to do! |
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| He had the same picture last year :) |
Today, we went back to Cincinnati Children's to see Dr. Scott. When they called to confirm the appointment, they gave me another audiologist's name, so I thought we would be with her. When we got there, she was just helping in the booth and we still saw Dr. Scott. We started the appointment with putting Brody in the booth to see what he was hearing. He didn't write down an audiogram, but was just kind of feeling Brody out. He did better than I expected. He was turning to things that were in the speech range on the speech banana that I posted previously. So although we weren't getting responses from him with us talking, when he knows he is supposed to be listening, he will give a reaction.
From there, we went back in the room where he had his initial stim (when they first hooked up his processors). Dr. Scott plugged them into the computer and created new maps for the processors. In the video you will see them connected to a black cord. This cord is what connects the processor to the computer.
This time, he gave Brody another four programs to work through. This might get confusing...so hang with me. In program 1, they kept the last series of programs program 4. That way, he can ease into the map with the last program he was in. Then, programs 2-4 are all new programs. Clear as mud? :) So if the new programs are too loud or he acts like he doesn't like them, we are able to switch back to a program we know he can tolerate. We are going to try to go up a program everyday like we did with the last round of them. We go back again October 30th for another mapping. We are also starting speech with Ms. Kristie soon!
Brody has been very interested in Bear recently. He loves to bring Bear the dog bone and try to throw the ball for him! Bear...not too much of a fan with the now more mobile Brody. :)
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