Cochlear Implant Love!!!

I literally have happy tears today!  This morning Logan and I went to Sunshine Cottage for testing.  It was the first time "in the booth" with his cochlear implants and I was anxious to get an idea of what he is hearing with his new ears.

His last hearing test results was with hearing aids and it showed that he responded to sounds in the 50 - 85 decibel range, depending on the frequency. You can compare 50 db to a nearby conversation, although many of the consonants in the English language fall in the 40db range.  And 85 db could be compared to a loud piano or a loud phone ringing. 

Well, during today's testing, Logan was responding at around 20-25 db!  That means he now has great access to language and is now falling in the mild hearing loss range for children.  Not only that, his testing today was based on behavioral responses from Logan and was not a test of his threshold for hearing, or the minimum level that he can hear a specific frequency.   What really has me ecstatic about this is that he may possibly be able to hear a whisper now, which is around 15 db!

I am looking forward to having more testing done in the coming months and to continue getting his cochlear programs mapped and tweeked so that he can get the most out of his devices.  

Finally, in other news, Logan has officially taken his first steps!

Six Weeks Post Activation

It has been six weeks since Logan's ears were turned on and, I have to say, he is doing fantastic.  He is now doing the ma, da, ah sounds, and has also made the g and b sounds, which is great for him.  What is even better is that he is doing so well with conversational turns.  Those of us with naturally working ears do not ever really think about this, but children who are born with hearing loss have to actually learn to listen and learn that communicating through vocalization is important.  We have been working on getting him to request what he wants by vocalizing lately.  For example, Logan and I were playing with one of his toy cars.  He would hand it to me and he wanted me to give it back to him. But I would hold it until he used his voice and I immediately gave it back to him and said "yay, Logan" or something similar.  This goes on until he loses interest in the game.  We also apply this to mealtime and anything else we can think of. 

Also, we had a session with one of Logan's teachers this afternoon and I am so happy about what she had to say about his progress.   Although she prefaced that his progress may not always be at this pace, she said he has been "a rock star of a cochlear implant recipient."  This is because he is so interested in social interaction and wants to be a part of conversations, he wants to use his voice and see you respond back to him.  As she said, this is something that you just can't teach a child and we are fortunate that he has the personality that he does.  She has been teaching deaf children for a very long time and she said that a lot of times kids will not really care to interact or respond to sounds even though they can hear it.

As for his other therapies, we are just waiting for him to officially walk.  He is almost there. He is cruising and crawling so fast and he is letting go for longer and longer periods of time. We are just waiting for him to get up the courage to take a step.  I am hoping he does it in the next few weeks (before he turns 15 months) because then he will be labeled delayed.  Of course, that isn't the end of the world, but I guess I am just being impatient!  You would think that he would be running by now with the way he is climbing up on everything. I can't wait to report that we have another walker in the house!