Taking a break

We decided to take a break from therapy this summer. Landon is doing really well with his speech. According to the testing his AVT does, he still has a little delay, but we've both come to the agreement we think a lot of his scoring has to do with his personality. Landon does not like to just sit there and "perform". He'll cooperate for a while but after 30 minutes or so of answering the questions, pointing at pictures, and naming objects, he is ready for something else. The testing at this point is very specific-like if he doesn't have the s on the end and it should be a plural then it's wrong. His therapist and his dad and I think he is really above where he is testing-it's just we aren't able to get him to do it at that time when he needs to. The only things he is really still in therapy for is fine tuning his pronunciation--getting certain letters pronounced right. Right now we are working on F, V, S, Z, and L. He's got the pronunciation of them down so the focus now is just getting him to use it in every day speaking. Just like any typical kid, he's gotten lazy with his speech so we are trying to get him to take the time and really pronounce things correctly. Like when he says his name, instead of just mumbling it like he does....getting him to put that good "L" on the beginning so it's clear. Until you are going through speech therapy, you never really pay attention to how certain sounds should be produced. Like a "S" should be made with the tongue behind the teeth. Shelley caught both Garrett and Connor saying words incorrectly with this so we've been working on them too to get teeth together and give a good S. It's the fine tuning of these types of things that are the focus of Landon's therapy these days.

Cochlear Celebration 2011

WOW!! After going to the Cochlear Celebration at Disney World we are already trying to figure out how we are going to be able to make it to Cochlear Celebration 2013 in San Diego---it was that much fun! Even though we weren't able to attend as many of the sessions as we would have liked, Eric said the ones he went to were exceptional. Landon had a blast being able to meet other kids with "ears" like his. Everywhere we went he would point them out "look, she/he has ears like me". We were able to talk with several families on the buses going to the parks, too, so it wasn't just at the cochlear events. It was so nice to be able to talk with other families going through all the same things as us. The first night there they had a welcome reception/ice cream social down on the beach at the hotel. Several of the Disney characters were there for pictures. They were handing out glow necklaces, bracelets, and flashing Cochlear magnets. All the recipients were wearing the magnets on top of the magnets on their coils. It was so cute on the kids to have the flashing lights/ not to mention how adorable it was on the elderly gentlemen and ladies :) Here is a pic of Landon with his on.


Kaci the Koala was at several of the events and the kids loved meeting him.

On Saturday morning they had an Expo where you could see their products/accessories and they had tables with interactive experiences. One was on therapy for kids and how to incorporate it with toys/playing. They also had a table set up for "decorating your implant". Landon loved that one.

We were also able to meet Jim Patrick, chief scientist for Cochlear. He is the engineer that worked with Graeme Clark to develop the first implant.

That night they had the celebration party at Hollywood Studios. Private Disney buses brought us from the hotel to the back entrance of the park and literally dropped us off on the Streets of America. First was dinner-several buffet stations were set up and the food was great. They had face painting for the kids and the arcade at Pizza Planet was open (and free) for play. Mickey and Minnie were there for more pictures. We were then escorted to the Sorcerer's Hat in the middle of the Studios for a fabulous fireworks display. The area by Hollywood Tower of Terror and Rockin' Rollercoaster was setup for a huge block party with a band playing and the two rides were open for use.




It was a great time and we can't wait to go to more celebrations! Disney was awesome as well :) We extended our time both before and after the conference so we were able to have a nice long vacation there. Of course, I still wasn't ready to leave--but is anyone ready to leave Disney??

Stop the clock

Where did January go? It seems like we were just celebrating Christmas and it's almost February. I'm still trying to figure out where 2010 went. The days sure fly by with 4 kids. The holidays are always a busy time for us, in the middle of all the Christmas activities we also have birthdays for 7 family members and our anniversary all crammed in the month of December.

We've been talking about the Cochlear Celebration at Disney for so long I can't believe it's almost time. Eric's parents, sister, and nephew are going so they can help us with the kids during some of the sessions. Maybe when Landon is older we'll let him do some of the activities for the kids but at this point we're not comfortable with the idea of him going off alone with strangers. We are really looking forward to all the "family" activities they offer. I've gotten to talk to several families online with kids with implants but we haven't been able to meet many in person so it will be nice to finally get the opportunity. It's going to be interesting to see how Landon reacts to seeing other kids with "ears" like his. He's only seen a few kids before with implants.

We took the kids to see a Star Wars exhibit at a nearby museum a few months ago. We were surprised to find a section on cochlear implants. They had a display showing how the technology of star wars (droids, robots, etc) translated into everyday life-like prosthetics and implants. We took a picture of Landon in front of the CI display and then Garrett walked by it and Landon told him no-those were his ears.







a little late but....hope you had a good holiday!

Cochlear Celebration-2011

We have our hotel reservations for Cochlear Celebration 2011 at Walt Disney World. After looking over some of the videos from past celebrations it looks like it is going to be a blast. We can't wait to meet some other families and see what new things Cochlear is working on. As for their latest, the Nucleus 5, we love it. It is so much easier keeping it on Landon's ears. He now wears the BTE's with no additional equipment to keep it on-no snugfits, no toupee tape, nothing. The only time it seems to fall off is when he is wrestling with his older brothers but the freedoms did that too-even with the snugfits and tape, so we can't complain.
As far as any speech improvement, we can see a huge change in his language since switching to the N5. He's at a point now we have to have another language evaluation Friday to see if he will even qualify to continue receiving speech therapy through our insurance. We had moved down to only once a month AVT sessions and insurance is saying that is maintenance which they don't cover-they only cover if there is a delay. So we'll have to see how his testing goes and decide from there what to do.

What we've been up to

These past few months have been super busy. We have a new addition in the family--my brother and sister-in-law had their first baby~~Mateo Jack. We took a quick trip to Austin, Texas to meet the cutie. It was nice to get away for a few days...and the weather in Austin was so nice compared to the 100 degree heat we've been fighting with all summer.

We had Landon's birthday party today at Chuck E. Cheese. This was the first year he really got into the whole birthday thing. All he has talked about the last 2 months is he wanted a choo-choo birthday cake at Chuck E. Cheese-so that's what he got. He had a blast. I can't believe he's going to be 4 years old tomorrow--it seems like I just had him and we started on his journey to hearing.

Here's a quick video of the last few months.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The man behind the miracle

The international Lister Medal, one of the most prestigious honors a surgeon can receive, was won by Australia's Graeme Clarke this week. We profile the man who made the 'bionic ear' a reality.

For 10 years, Graeme Clark had been working tirelessly to develop an implant that would help the deaf to hear. The theory made sense. The electronics had been developed, and the design was near finalised.

But there was one seemingly insurmountable hurdle: how to actually get the implant into the intricate spiral of the inner ear.

During one Melbourne summer in 1977, he took his young children to the beach to escape the heat. While they were playing in the shallows, Clark noticed a seashell lying on the ground - and that its helical structure was a crude replica of the human cochlea.

Inspiration hit. He pulled up some grass blades and experimented with teasing them into the shell's opening. Owing to their flexible tips and stiff bases, the blades slid smoothly into the tightening spiral. It revealed a simple solution to a complex problem.

Read the rest of the story here

App for learning to listen sounds

Eric just finished an app with the learning to listen sounds. You can see it at the itunes store here

You can also see it on his website