It has been almost a whole month since Logan's CIs were turned on. My how time flies! We have certainly been busy with all the extra therapy sessions that have been added in the past month. We have teachers from both Easter Seals and our school district that we now see once a week each (previously twice a month), our advisor from Sunshine Cottage whom we also see weekly and Logan's physical therapist, which has been bumped to a weekly occurrence as well. In the next month or so, we'll also be adding Speech Therapy to the mix!
I am very happy to say that I am pleased with the progress he has made in the last month. As you may or may not know, cochlear implants provide a whole new way of hearing so the recipient must learn how to interpret the information from the digital signal his brain is receiving from them. Because of this, we were told to consider his hearing like he is a newborn and to expect his vocalizing and speech to roughly follow the timeline of a child in his first year of life. Of course, this is only a generalization and some children progress much faster than this and other progress slower.
Well, during the first couple of weeks with his new ears Logan was pretty quiet, as expected, since he was learning to listen with his new ears. But over the last week he has started babbling again! I am thrilled because this started before his ears were even a month old. He is saying ma-ma-ma-ma and ah ah ah ah. When I first told one of his teachers she was very excited because she said it usually takes a lot longer for CI kids to start babbling again.
Last Wednesday, his implants were remapped because his swelling has gone down a lot over the last month and they were able to make them louder for him. Since then, I've also noticed that he is starting to turn more and more toward sounds. I've even caught him dancing to music, something he had never done before. We can't wait to see what the next month will bring!
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Two Weeks Post Activation
It has already been two weeks since Logan's initial stimulation and we are thrilled with what we are seeing so far. It is by no means a night and day difference from the hearing aids he wore previously. He is still getting used to his new ears and starting to figure out how to listen with them, but when he responds (or appears to respond) to things we had not previously seen, it brings so much joy to my heart.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Ling 6 sounds, these are familiar sounds that broadly represent the speech spectrum and include low, medium and high frequency sounds (ah / ee / oo /mm / sss / sh) and can be used to test whether a child has access to the full spectrum of speech sounds in a very low tech way. With hearing aids, Logan had very limited access to these sounds. We are still unsure of what he has access to with his implants, since we will still be fine tuning his programs and we have not had a hearing test with them yet. However, I was thrilled when Logan responded to the "sh" sound when I was working with him the other day. He has never been able to do that, as far as I can remember.
The other thing that we have been so excited about over the last few days is that he is starting to respond to music! We love listening to music and we are so happy that hopefully our son is now able to hear some of it.
Jasmine was watching Madagascar yesterday and the part with the Bee Gee's song came on. Logan was not looking at the TV at the time, but he started bobbing up and down as he was cruising the sofa. He had no visual cues that would tell him to start dancing so I know he heard the music! We are so excited to see what other great things he will be doing in the near future.
Logan Dancing
For those of you who are not familiar with the Ling 6 sounds, these are familiar sounds that broadly represent the speech spectrum and include low, medium and high frequency sounds (ah / ee / oo /mm / sss / sh) and can be used to test whether a child has access to the full spectrum of speech sounds in a very low tech way. With hearing aids, Logan had very limited access to these sounds. We are still unsure of what he has access to with his implants, since we will still be fine tuning his programs and we have not had a hearing test with them yet. However, I was thrilled when Logan responded to the "sh" sound when I was working with him the other day. He has never been able to do that, as far as I can remember.
The other thing that we have been so excited about over the last few days is that he is starting to respond to music! We love listening to music and we are so happy that hopefully our son is now able to hear some of it.
Jasmine was watching Madagascar yesterday and the part with the Bee Gee's song came on. Logan was not looking at the TV at the time, but he started bobbing up and down as he was cruising the sofa. He had no visual cues that would tell him to start dancing so I know he heard the music! We are so excited to see what other great things he will be doing in the near future.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Activation Day!!!!
The day we've been waiting for has finally arrived! It's one week after surgery and today Logan's ears were turned on! It is the first day of his new hearing journey, and one that we are thrilled to be undertaking with him. We were very anxious to see what his response would be when they turned the first one on and were well aware that some kids have no reaction, some smile or get excited and some cry because it is so new to them. Of course, every parent who goes through this hopes for the big, excited response, but that is the exception rather than the rule when kids are activated.
The moment finally arrived once Marci, his wonderful audiologist, did her thing to get the first side ready to be turned on. When she turned on the first side poor little Logan was scared and cried. As she went through the mapping of this first side, he got used to the sounds and started to respond much better.
Logan's First Response
Logan gets accustomed to the sounds
It was a really long morning for Logan. He started acting really tired and getting fussy when we were still working on the first side. We even contemplated activating only one today and resuming tomorrow. But Andrew and I really wanted to get it all done, so we resorted to all the snacks and goodies I packed for him. Thank goodness for Veggie sticks, Mum-mums and puffs!
By the time we got to doing the second side, he was already a pro at it! He didn't cry this time. He would just look up at Marci, a veggie stick in hand, and would raise his eyebrows every time he heard something. For those of you that work with Logan regularly, you know this is his signature response! He had gotten his energy back up by the time the mapping was done. By this time, he was back to flirting with his wonderful teacher Lindsey!
Logan's eyebrow raising
Logan does the unexpected!
We were lucky enough to get to talk to an audiologist from Cochlear who happened to be on site at Sunshine Cottage today. We were very interested to talk to her about how "waterproof" his new implants were. She was very helpful and answered all of our questions. She even encouraged us to experiment now while the devices are under warranty!
Once we left and picked Jasmine up from my mom, we went home for the kids' naps. Well Andrew and I realized how exhausting the morning had been and we napped also. After our naps, we decided it was time to celebrate Logan's big day. And what better way to celebrate than to go out for some good ice cream!
Having been through our first day with Logan's implants, I realize just how hard it is going to be just to keep them on his head. The hearing aids were hard enough, and he certainly mastered the art of pulling them out of his ears. But since he is so small and the processors don't stay on his ears very well yet, the device is mostly just dangling from the magnet on his head with the wires so much easier for him to grab onto. I'm sure we'll come up with a way to keep them on him, just like we did with the hearing aids. I'm not really anxious to have to put some type of headband on his head! Either way, I'm so excited to see what the future holds for him!
The moment finally arrived once Marci, his wonderful audiologist, did her thing to get the first side ready to be turned on. When she turned on the first side poor little Logan was scared and cried. As she went through the mapping of this first side, he got used to the sounds and started to respond much better.
It was a really long morning for Logan. He started acting really tired and getting fussy when we were still working on the first side. We even contemplated activating only one today and resuming tomorrow. But Andrew and I really wanted to get it all done, so we resorted to all the snacks and goodies I packed for him. Thank goodness for Veggie sticks, Mum-mums and puffs!
By the time we got to doing the second side, he was already a pro at it! He didn't cry this time. He would just look up at Marci, a veggie stick in hand, and would raise his eyebrows every time he heard something. For those of you that work with Logan regularly, you know this is his signature response! He had gotten his energy back up by the time the mapping was done. By this time, he was back to flirting with his wonderful teacher Lindsey!
We were lucky enough to get to talk to an audiologist from Cochlear who happened to be on site at Sunshine Cottage today. We were very interested to talk to her about how "waterproof" his new implants were. She was very helpful and answered all of our questions. She even encouraged us to experiment now while the devices are under warranty!
Once we left and picked Jasmine up from my mom, we went home for the kids' naps. Well Andrew and I realized how exhausting the morning had been and we napped also. After our naps, we decided it was time to celebrate Logan's big day. And what better way to celebrate than to go out for some good ice cream!
Having been through our first day with Logan's implants, I realize just how hard it is going to be just to keep them on his head. The hearing aids were hard enough, and he certainly mastered the art of pulling them out of his ears. But since he is so small and the processors don't stay on his ears very well yet, the device is mostly just dangling from the magnet on his head with the wires so much easier for him to grab onto. I'm sure we'll come up with a way to keep them on him, just like we did with the hearing aids. I'm not really anxious to have to put some type of headband on his head! Either way, I'm so excited to see what the future holds for him!
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