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!