school of the deaf annual spring show...

this year logan's class sang "firework", by katy perry, for the spring show.  the theme this year was "America".  he walked around the house for months singing that song and had to turn it up every time it came on the radio. 

 

here's a short video from their performance and logan's little solo.  logan is the one on the far right with the white shirt on.  i love his pose at the end, those kind of moves come from my side of the family! :)  enjoy!...
(you'll have to pause the music down at the bottom-right of the page in order to hear the video)
 ...

great job guys!!

Happy Valentine's Day...

Logan had a great Valentine's Day party at school with themed treats and exchanging cards...

Giving Ms. C.J. her Valentine...

and one for Ms. Vergie, too...

Our Valentine fun at home...

My Busy Day...

I had speech therapy at 8 am with Miss Brittany...

I had my Thanksgiving celebration at school at 11 am...

I took a quick snooze in the car at 12 pm...

I met up with dad for my ENT pre-op appointment at 12:30 pm...

Then we were home for about 20 minutes--long enough to do my "stars"...

We were then off to another appointment for my pre-op with anesthesia at 3:30 pm...

And finally, a reward for all my patience and good behavior today...

School...

Last Friday we got a chance to go and meet Logan's new teacher and see the classroom. We had been excited all week, only to walk in to some minor disappointments. Although we were excited about the teacher (she is fantastic) we were not thrilled about the other elements of the program. We were promised a room with carpet--which is important for CI users to avoid echo and bad acoustics-- and the room was tile from top to bottom. Also, the speech therapist that will be working with the children not only had no experience with working with CI kids, she didn't even realize that there was a difference in teaching a hearing child to speak vs. a implanted child. I left there disappointed, sad and slightly deceived. I felt like the school, in a sense, said, "Here's a teacher and a sound field. There's your Oral program." I understand that being a new program, that there will be kinks to work out. But a few of the major issues, that were previously promised to us, were not in tact. Logan is at a crucial time for his language development, and although we are doing all that we can at home, his school experience needs to be up to par. I decided that Logan would attend class on Monday and that I would go in with a more positive attitude and do what I could to help get this program started.

Logan could hardly contain his excitement all weekend. He packed up his backpack with tons of school supplies (see video below) and helped me make his lunch. I felt more at ease when we walked in to the classroom and saw that adjustments had been made to the room. There were a few rugs around the room and color had been added...it was now more kid-friendly. Logan was slightly hesitant, but once he saw the play dough, his worries vanished.

At the end of the day I spoke with his teacher, Ms. Mills (who is a bi-lateral CI user) and seemed confident that Logan would get what he needed from her and this program. We, of course, need to continue his "therapy" at home but I think he will progress nicely under Ms. Mill's care.

Thanks for the emails...

I have had a few other 'CI MOMS' email me and ask what kind of program/therapy we have Logan in. We are still trying to set all of that up, since we have just moved, but here is what we have been doing this summer to keep busy...

Logan attended the Preschool at the John Tracy clinic last year and that is where we learned most of the “therapy” that we do at home. They have free online courses, if you’re interested. Go to http://www.jtc.org/ to sign up. We just moved from California to Florida, so the only therapy he has received this summer is at home with me. I usually set aside one hour in the morning and one hour after his nap and play with him, making it a language activity. I am talking to him all day about everything we are doing. I ask him to repeat a lot. It took him a while before he would mimic me, but now he does it without me having to ask.

I choose a theme for the week (or sometimes two weeks) and we read books, do crafts, (try to) go on “field trips”, all having to do with that theme. I print off pictures of that theme (from the computer) and hang them up around the house. When we walk by the picture we say the name. For example, one week we did fruits and vegetables. We had pictures of apples, peas, corn, etc. around the house. We then went to a strawberry farm and picked strawberries. We also made carrots out of tissue paper. Then every night we read the same book, which has to do with our theme. My older (hearing) son enjoys the activities as well, and my 20 month old benefits from the language activities as well!

Right now we are working on the Alphabet. We do two/three letters per week, but don’t move on until he has mastered the current letters. There are letters hanging up around the house. When Logan walks past one, he comes to tell me what it is. When we read our book at night, we try to find the letters of the week, in his book.
You can find a lot of ideas off the Internet. Many preschool sites have free lesson plans; we use those, and then just tweak them to fit Logan’s needs.
Also, once he starts school, we'll find out their theme for the week and do our own activities at home that go along with what he is learning at school.

I am also a big fan of "experience books". Logan simply loves them and I find myself needing to make a new one about every month. I make experience books with Family members, daily activities, and objects/places that he sees everyday.

I would also love to hear any ideas, form any of you, who have done things that have worked as well. Please share!

quick update

So on our cross country trip from LA to Florida, we stopped in San Antonio, TX to visit family. While we were there, we spent two days at Sea World. We saw the Shamu show a few times because it was Logan's favorite. Anyway, today we were lounging around the house listening to music and having fun with each other when Dad put on Neil Diamond's "America" (my older son loves that song). As soon as Logan heard the first 4 beats, he did the sign for Whale and tried to tell us that that was the same song he heard during the Shamu show. He was right! Simple, I know, but we were amazed that he made that connection and was learning to distinguish music like that.



Logan is progressing nicely. Just the other night he needed help with something and said a 3 word sentence-spontaneously- "Daddy, help me." He is also weening out the sign when he speaks, "mommy" and "daddy" are completely 'sign-free'. It's almost as if he knows what words he says well and are understandable because those are the words that no longer are accompanied by sign.



We received confirmation that the oral program here ion Gainesville is a for sure thing and, in fact, they just hired a teacher. The program director said that they were really happy with the decision made to hire this teacher and that she is fantastic and ...she, herself, has bilateral implants! Pretty cool. There will be 6 children between the ages of 2 1/2-4. Three with CIs and 3 with hearing aids and they are all between 3 to 9 months hearing. We are excited and hopeful about being apart of the start of this program.



We are in the process of setting up new audiologists, ENTs, etc and will start our process of trying to get him the second implant.

School Field Trip!

Logan's preschool went to the Aquarium for a field trip last week. The kids had a great time and it was a great language activity. Logan is still talking about it!