Over the past few weeks I have noticed that Landon has become really good a reading lips. The other night while I was watching the Saints NFC Championship game, he came to hand me he ears; which he readily pulls off when he gets tired at night. After he place the devices in my hand, I instinctively asked him if he was ready to go to sleep to which he answered, “Yep, night, night.”
In that instant it made me pause, and I thought to myself “Did he hear that?” Of course, within one second of that thought the reality came back to my mind. It was interesting to me to see how far I could take it and he was able to answer readily to the few question I asked him about getting his night-cap; chocolate milk. I have begun to force myself to speak to him verbally even when I know his “ears” are not being used to help develop his lip reading. He certainly is one smart little dude…
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
New ears on order!!
Landon's new ears are on order!! Cochlear has joined up with another company-Mediquip- to help people get approval/purchase the N5 upgrades. Since we already had approval from our insurance, the process was a little faster for us. It does save us from having to come out of pocket for the full cost and waiting for reimbursement from insurance--which is wonderful!! Mediquip got a copy of the approval from our insurance, they have ordered his N5's, and when they get them will send them to us. They will then get reimbursed from insurance and we will only have to come out of pocket our portion of what insurance doesn't cover. We are sooo excited!! Hopefully these will be a lot more durable then the plastic freedoms because Landon is definitely hard on his ears!
For another parent that asked our insurance, through Eric's work, is PPO Plus. We've been really lucky with insurance through all this. The way it is set up, Eric's work has their own medical review board that approves/precerts insurance requests and then passes it on to the insurance company to pay. With the upgrade, we had Landon's audiologist write a letter,which the surgeon signed, requesting the upgrade. Our case manager put it before the medical review board and it was approved. One thing that I think has helped us through all of this with Landon is he is the first person there to go through something like this. His being approved for simultaneous bilateral implants and now the upgrades is basically setting the precedent for anyone that will come behind him needing this. It doesn't mean we haven't had to do any work. When we put it before the review board for the surgery, I had a book of research and insurance policies that we gave them to back up our request. But I have to say we have had a very easy time with approvals compared to most families going through this. As many problems as people generally have with insurance, our company has been wonderful through all this.
For another parent that asked our insurance, through Eric's work, is PPO Plus. We've been really lucky with insurance through all this. The way it is set up, Eric's work has their own medical review board that approves/precerts insurance requests and then passes it on to the insurance company to pay. With the upgrade, we had Landon's audiologist write a letter,which the surgeon signed, requesting the upgrade. Our case manager put it before the medical review board and it was approved. One thing that I think has helped us through all of this with Landon is he is the first person there to go through something like this. His being approved for simultaneous bilateral implants and now the upgrades is basically setting the precedent for anyone that will come behind him needing this. It doesn't mean we haven't had to do any work. When we put it before the review board for the surgery, I had a book of research and insurance policies that we gave them to back up our request. But I have to say we have had a very easy time with approvals compared to most families going through this. As many problems as people generally have with insurance, our company has been wonderful through all this.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Approval
Just wanted to share with everyone that we received an email from our case management worker. Landon has been approved to upgrade all 4 of his Freedoms for the new Nucleus 5 sound processors. Still trying to decide on what color we are going to order. Here's a link to take a look at the new "ears" he'll be getting.
http://products.cochlearamericas.com/cochlear-implants/nucleus-5-system/smallest-sound-processor
http://products.cochlearamericas.com/cochlear-implants/nucleus-5-system/smallest-sound-processor
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year everyone!! I can't believe how fast 2009 flew by. Hopefully 2010 will slow down some so I can get back to regular blogging.
The kids are all getting over colds right now. Connor started on Christmas and it's gone through all of us. Bella and Landon both got ear infections with theirs. They are all either on medicine or just finishing up so hopefully they'll all be getting well soon.
Landon's speech is getting better and better. He's talking in phrases and sentences now so no more one word answers. Right now we are working on getting him to understand in/on/under and my/yours. Everything he says is with a person's name-so we are working on getting him to learn pronouns.
Bella is crawling, standing, and cruising. She walks with her baby buggy so I don't think it will be long before she's running after her brothers. It seems too soon for her to be doing it but I think that has to do with Landon having such a delay in his gross motors. She has been a little earlier than the other 2 boys though.
Here's some pics from our Christmas...Hope you had a great one :)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
IEP- where we are at now
After starting the transition process back in April, 6 months later we are basically getting ready to start the whole process over. Here's what has happened so far.
1. In April we had a regular meeting with our Early Steps coordinator. She told me someone from the school board would be coming to it to start the transition process out of Early Steps into the school system. The lady from the school board came and left in under 5 minutes. She said she had paperwork for me to sign that would get the process started. She asked a few questions about his medical history and what type of therapy we had been doing. I told her we were specifically looking for continuing AV therapy. Point blank told her we were not looking to put him in a preschool program at that time and asked what would be our options. She told me based on his age he would qualify for in-home services or if they didn't have an opening available I could bring him to the school for his hour of therapy. Like I said, she was here maybe 5 minutes. I was told it was just a meeting for signing the paperwork to get everything going.
2. We got a letter in the mail with a time for a screening. The letter says "should the results of the screening indicate the need for an evaluation we must obtain written consent". That being said, we showed up for what we thought was just another meeting to find out it was his evaluation. I touched on this some in the previous post. I was waiting in the car with the other kids and they were gone just under an hour and Eric said most of that was them just talking and going over stuff with him. He said they started by signing with him, then started using exaggerated lip movements trying to get him to lip read. After 10 minutes of this, they finally asked Eric if were we able to communicate with him at all. EXCUSE ME??? Did they not read any of his history?? So Eric told them to just talk to him normally. Eric said by that point Landon was just looking at these people like they were nuts because they were making all these gestures,wild hand movements, and funny facial expressions he had never seen so he was starting to act timid and wanted to stay with Eric. Then they put Landon in-between two strangers who were bombarding him with different tasks. Eric said they tried to get him to do 50 things in less than 20 minutes. Example - asked him to count to 10. He didn't know what they were asking so he didn't do anything. So they said he couldn't do it. A few minutes later they took out 10 blocks and on his own he counted them 1 through 10. But because he didn't do it they way they asked he can't count to 10.
To give you an idea of how off the evaluation was, here's just a little comparison between the school board's evaluation and his exit evaluation from Early Steps in one section.
Under attention and memory, school board has him age equivalent of 14 months. Early Steps eval had him age equivalent 34 months. Reasoning and academic school board has him at 21 months - early steps has him 30 months. Perception and Concepts school board is 23 months - early steps is 34 months.
Both tests were the Battelle Developmental so it wasn't a difference in tests administered. I would expect a little difference but to have a difference of 20 months in a child that was only around 31/32 months at the time is a HUGE difference!!
I'll get into our "planning meeting" in the next post.
1. In April we had a regular meeting with our Early Steps coordinator. She told me someone from the school board would be coming to it to start the transition process out of Early Steps into the school system. The lady from the school board came and left in under 5 minutes. She said she had paperwork for me to sign that would get the process started. She asked a few questions about his medical history and what type of therapy we had been doing. I told her we were specifically looking for continuing AV therapy. Point blank told her we were not looking to put him in a preschool program at that time and asked what would be our options. She told me based on his age he would qualify for in-home services or if they didn't have an opening available I could bring him to the school for his hour of therapy. Like I said, she was here maybe 5 minutes. I was told it was just a meeting for signing the paperwork to get everything going.
2. We got a letter in the mail with a time for a screening. The letter says "should the results of the screening indicate the need for an evaluation we must obtain written consent". That being said, we showed up for what we thought was just another meeting to find out it was his evaluation. I touched on this some in the previous post. I was waiting in the car with the other kids and they were gone just under an hour and Eric said most of that was them just talking and going over stuff with him. He said they started by signing with him, then started using exaggerated lip movements trying to get him to lip read. After 10 minutes of this, they finally asked Eric if were we able to communicate with him at all. EXCUSE ME??? Did they not read any of his history?? So Eric told them to just talk to him normally. Eric said by that point Landon was just looking at these people like they were nuts because they were making all these gestures,wild hand movements, and funny facial expressions he had never seen so he was starting to act timid and wanted to stay with Eric. Then they put Landon in-between two strangers who were bombarding him with different tasks. Eric said they tried to get him to do 50 things in less than 20 minutes. Example - asked him to count to 10. He didn't know what they were asking so he didn't do anything. So they said he couldn't do it. A few minutes later they took out 10 blocks and on his own he counted them 1 through 10. But because he didn't do it they way they asked he can't count to 10.
To give you an idea of how off the evaluation was, here's just a little comparison between the school board's evaluation and his exit evaluation from Early Steps in one section.
Under attention and memory, school board has him age equivalent of 14 months. Early Steps eval had him age equivalent 34 months. Reasoning and academic school board has him at 21 months - early steps has him 30 months. Perception and Concepts school board is 23 months - early steps is 34 months.
Both tests were the Battelle Developmental so it wasn't a difference in tests administered. I would expect a little difference but to have a difference of 20 months in a child that was only around 31/32 months at the time is a HUGE difference!!
I'll get into our "planning meeting" in the next post.
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