We have decided that its time to move things forward & find out why this has happened to savannah. I think it will also help us close this door & be able to move forward more clearly.
We have started the paperwork for savannahs newborn screening test to be re-tested for CMV. It hasn't been too difficult thankfully, i assume this has been quite a popular test for families that are trying to also determine what made their child deaf.
Hopefully we should have results within 14 days. I really really hope that this isn't what she has got. This can cause ALOT more problems later down the track :(
I will keep you updated on the process, if its negative we are referred to the Royal children's Hospital for genetic testing, then off for an MRI.
Off the subject i thought i would tell you all excitedly that savannah started trying to roll. VERY EXCITING!!! she also has become much stronger in the neck & is moving quite noticeably on her belly in a circle! very exciting, because it gives us hope that she may not fall behind developmentally :)
Monday, July 26, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Ill take what i can get.....
I wonder some days what it would be like to hear very little. Sometimes I just sit there thinking about what things would be different in your life? Even attempting to block my ears with my fingers feels weird. Have you ever done it long enough to notice what you really hear? I know i cant hear a great deal, but mostly i know its not clear. The workings of the ear has completely taken me in. I find myself constantly googling things about hearing impairment & how the cochlea works. Things i would have previously shrugged off. This has become a huge part of our life now. One that im finding extremely interesting & more importantly more comfortable with. There truly is a big wide world of technology & medical advances to help those with disabilites. Savannah is lucky to be born in the 20th century.
I went into our appointment today with a totally open mind, thinking that whatever happens with the testing happens. As long as the ears havent gotten worse then i cant complain right?
I really had to hold my nervousness in as i really didnt want to get my hopes up. But secretly i felt confident. Dont get me wrong i do understand that she will have damage no matter what, but even a slight 10bd change can make the world of difference!
Because savannah was now over 3mth, they can no longer do the ABR test on her unless they sedate her, and really whats the point? Australian hearing have a really great way to determine what children can really hear. As explained to me this test isnt usually conducted untill the child is sitting & usually at 6-7mths old. But she wanted to determine that what we had seen last appt & what i had been noticing over the previous weeks with her right ear (profound ear) was actually happening & not a part of my imagination! LOL
The ran a serious of beep tests from 0-110 decibels. Then tested each decibel for tone which is from 250hz-4000hz.
Just to quickly tell you, when you are diagnosed with moderate-severe deafness it also means you are usually tone deaf too. If you remember the graph i posted in my first blog speech sits at different tones on the chart. For the most part people with hearing loss have high pitch deafness as well. So along with the original diagnosis they also wont have the high pitch tones which are the constants (ie S,f,sh etc).
It can play a major part in their speech learning, which i never knew. I needed to know so that taralye could work around that & teach her how to understand those.
I was pretty much blown from my chair when she told me savannah isn't pitch deaf at all! Yep that's when i fell off my chair! This was the first of our amazing news for the day!!!!!!
Basically it means she is moderate-severe & that's it!!!! she can hear anything from 65bs upwards & from 250hz-4000hz! YIPPEEEE & i thought this day couldn't get any better! :)
So back to the testing, i was holding savannah whilst they had another audiologist analysing her responses to the sounds sent to her right ear.
I'm glad i couldn't see her face because it made me fell like i wasn't going to see something they may not have. This was their job their profession & they knew what they where looking for!
The test didn't go for long because it was only one ear, but when i saw the result card i was absolutely shocked! not only did she actually hear some of the sounds once again she isn't tone deaf in the right ear! Hey she isn't even completely deaf in that ear like first thought! i swear i was ready to shout out "HALLELUJAH"
She explained further that because of her age, the reading is only what they perceived she was hearing, babies tend not to respond to soft noises because they are still so young, and in savannahs case she wasn't even meant to be doing this test.
So she was steady hearing at 90db which is still boarder line profoundness...BUT its a massive improvement & she believes that as she gets older & more alert, she will be able to give us a better ready of what she is actually hearing. Their where other beep marks on the chart at lower dbs but as she said, they cant draw anything on that as its not consistent enough.
I'm not greedy ill take whatever i can get! And today we where really blessed to have had these small BUT amazing results for her! Especially on the tone front! OMG how amazing is that she can actually hear ALL the pitches!
That was basically it for the testing & then we went onto the normal appt things like moulds & her new responses & noises etc...
The last 3 weeks savannah has found her aides & has enjoyed taking the little buggers out constantly & throwing them thinking that she is cool...lol
The audiologist really couldn't believe that she was doing this at 3.5 mths! they have never had a baby so young pull them out like this intentionally! They average age of exploring them & finding the aides is between 7-9 mths. So we are sure that savannah is going to be quite the smarty pants ;)
we where given a pilot cap to keep the aides on & we happened to be the first to trial it. At first i was not even going to put the thing on her head it looked SOOOOOOOO UGLY! LOL
but you know what savannah makes it look ADORABLE! this kid makes having hearing loss fashionable as i like to say..lol
So at this point in her long journey I'm extremely happy that we are making even the smallest progress. I only pray we can make it to where both her ears have a fighting chance to hear the world as we know it. Just keep your fingers crossed for us because i know that ALL the support you've given so far has really helped & those prayers are being continuously answered! Its become quite clear this cheeky little girl is definately here for a purpose & a very big one at that...she is such a special lil thing.
xo
I went into our appointment today with a totally open mind, thinking that whatever happens with the testing happens. As long as the ears havent gotten worse then i cant complain right?
I really had to hold my nervousness in as i really didnt want to get my hopes up. But secretly i felt confident. Dont get me wrong i do understand that she will have damage no matter what, but even a slight 10bd change can make the world of difference!
Because savannah was now over 3mth, they can no longer do the ABR test on her unless they sedate her, and really whats the point? Australian hearing have a really great way to determine what children can really hear. As explained to me this test isnt usually conducted untill the child is sitting & usually at 6-7mths old. But she wanted to determine that what we had seen last appt & what i had been noticing over the previous weeks with her right ear (profound ear) was actually happening & not a part of my imagination! LOL
The ran a serious of beep tests from 0-110 decibels. Then tested each decibel for tone which is from 250hz-4000hz.
Just to quickly tell you, when you are diagnosed with moderate-severe deafness it also means you are usually tone deaf too. If you remember the graph i posted in my first blog speech sits at different tones on the chart. For the most part people with hearing loss have high pitch deafness as well. So along with the original diagnosis they also wont have the high pitch tones which are the constants (ie S,f,sh etc).
It can play a major part in their speech learning, which i never knew. I needed to know so that taralye could work around that & teach her how to understand those.
I was pretty much blown from my chair when she told me savannah isn't pitch deaf at all! Yep that's when i fell off my chair! This was the first of our amazing news for the day!!!!!!
Basically it means she is moderate-severe & that's it!!!! she can hear anything from 65bs upwards & from 250hz-4000hz! YIPPEEEE & i thought this day couldn't get any better! :)
So back to the testing, i was holding savannah whilst they had another audiologist analysing her responses to the sounds sent to her right ear.
I'm glad i couldn't see her face because it made me fell like i wasn't going to see something they may not have. This was their job their profession & they knew what they where looking for!
The test didn't go for long because it was only one ear, but when i saw the result card i was absolutely shocked! not only did she actually hear some of the sounds once again she isn't tone deaf in the right ear! Hey she isn't even completely deaf in that ear like first thought! i swear i was ready to shout out "HALLELUJAH"
She explained further that because of her age, the reading is only what they perceived she was hearing, babies tend not to respond to soft noises because they are still so young, and in savannahs case she wasn't even meant to be doing this test.
So she was steady hearing at 90db which is still boarder line profoundness...BUT its a massive improvement & she believes that as she gets older & more alert, she will be able to give us a better ready of what she is actually hearing. Their where other beep marks on the chart at lower dbs but as she said, they cant draw anything on that as its not consistent enough.
I'm not greedy ill take whatever i can get! And today we where really blessed to have had these small BUT amazing results for her! Especially on the tone front! OMG how amazing is that she can actually hear ALL the pitches!
That was basically it for the testing & then we went onto the normal appt things like moulds & her new responses & noises etc...
The last 3 weeks savannah has found her aides & has enjoyed taking the little buggers out constantly & throwing them thinking that she is cool...lol
The audiologist really couldn't believe that she was doing this at 3.5 mths! they have never had a baby so young pull them out like this intentionally! They average age of exploring them & finding the aides is between 7-9 mths. So we are sure that savannah is going to be quite the smarty pants ;)
we where given a pilot cap to keep the aides on & we happened to be the first to trial it. At first i was not even going to put the thing on her head it looked SOOOOOOOO UGLY! LOL
but you know what savannah makes it look ADORABLE! this kid makes having hearing loss fashionable as i like to say..lol
So at this point in her long journey I'm extremely happy that we are making even the smallest progress. I only pray we can make it to where both her ears have a fighting chance to hear the world as we know it. Just keep your fingers crossed for us because i know that ALL the support you've given so far has really helped & those prayers are being continuously answered! Its become quite clear this cheeky little girl is definately here for a purpose & a very big one at that...she is such a special lil thing.
xo
Monday, July 19, 2010
Eye Appt
Today was just another one of those "fingers crossed" days. Savannah had her eye appt to make sure there was no damage & that she had full vision. We have been waiting for this appt for the last 6 weeks!
6 weeks this has been sitting in the back of my mind, wondering whether or not something else was wrong!!
May i add that i will NEVER ever again take the 2 boys to one of savannahs appointments ever again! it was enough that i was stressing out, but these two tornados are just too crazy & energetic for a place like this! lol
So 3 hrs of waiting, 1 consult lady & 2 doctors later we got the " ALL CLEAR"! thankyou god!!!!!!!!!
One less thing to worry about, thankfully everything is ok, so i guess our ENT can go back to square 1 & cross of cmv from our list, and back to having no idea what happened to savannah.
But hey cant ask for everything, just so glad we have passed this hurrdle!
Onto the next...hearing tests on wednesday :)
6 weeks this has been sitting in the back of my mind, wondering whether or not something else was wrong!!
May i add that i will NEVER ever again take the 2 boys to one of savannahs appointments ever again! it was enough that i was stressing out, but these two tornados are just too crazy & energetic for a place like this! lol
So 3 hrs of waiting, 1 consult lady & 2 doctors later we got the " ALL CLEAR"! thankyou god!!!!!!!!!
One less thing to worry about, thankfully everything is ok, so i guess our ENT can go back to square 1 & cross of cmv from our list, and back to having no idea what happened to savannah.
But hey cant ask for everything, just so glad we have passed this hurrdle!
Onto the next...hearing tests on wednesday :)
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Welcome
Thankyou to my friends/family that have taken time to read this, stay updated with Savannah & continue to follow her long progress. Im blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives, and appreciate all the support & Love that you have given us.
As you all know, Savannah was born March 17th 2010 absolutely perfect & healthy! might i add she was a whopping 9.12lbs!! LOL
The only thing that will make life a challenge for her, is her hearing loss. Enjoy the updates on my little girl, and look forward to sharing this with you all. Hopefully there will be plenty of ups & lots of happy times, and less of the hard & sad times ahead.
Thankyou for showing your love for Savannah in reading about her journey :)
As you all know, Savannah was born March 17th 2010 absolutely perfect & healthy! might i add she was a whopping 9.12lbs!! LOL
The only thing that will make life a challenge for her, is her hearing loss. Enjoy the updates on my little girl, and look forward to sharing this with you all. Hopefully there will be plenty of ups & lots of happy times, and less of the hard & sad times ahead.
Thankyou for showing your love for Savannah in reading about her journey :)
From diagnosis to Now....
The Last thing i expected when i found out i was pregnant a third time,was that anything would happen. Both Hayden & Blake where smooth sailing pregnancies (apart from the horrible aches & pains) but i never had any health problems otherwise. So of course i never thought i would this time round. Savannah was first picked up for hearing at the Newborn screening test they did in the hospital. (Mind you 14 mths earlier they never did the testing because Blake never had it). Savannah had an "inconclusive" result. The lady that was testing savannah said there was probably nothing to worry about because lots of babies fail from them being unsettled. I brushed it off & didnt think anything of it. A week later we can back for the re-test & once again the lady could not pick up anything from either ear...."inconclusive" once again. We where then referred onto the Audiologist for further testing.
Our first Audiologist appt was terrible, Savannah was super fussy & i was frazzled from the stress of her fussing & the possability of another fail. The test seemed to take forever because she was so unsettled. Finally the Lady went ahead & told me that she was getting great responses from the left ear, but nothing at all from the right ear! Tears of frustration,uncertainty & sadness streamed down my face.
She did one final test to check for fluid & both ears came back positive. At this point she said it could be just the fluid, but we needed to wait another 5 weeks & be retested to make sure. As if i could wait 5 weeks? I sent myself crazy thinking the worse, and the what ifs???
5 weeks tunred into a lifetime & over this period we noticed savannah wasnt responding to her name or loud noises that we where making. Of course i was in complete denial & refused to believe anything was wrong. How could anything be wrong with my baby that was so perfect & healthy???
21st May The day of her final hearing tests & i was a wreck. My mum had to take savannah in for her testing, as i was too stressed to sit there trying to keep her calm. Basically more or less i knew something was wrong but didnt want to admit it or hear it. They where in there for what felt like forever, finally they came out & my mum told me that savannah was deaf. After that i broke down. I have never felt so heartbroken & upset in my life. I think it took me 2 days to stop crying everytime i looked into her eyes. That precious innocent face just stared at me & smiled. she had no idea what was going on.
I have cried so many tears thinking about how i could have changed this, or how i could have prevented this? The fact that i will probably never know what happened will probably live with me forever. I felt guilt because i didnt want her to have to be challenged in life. I wanted things to be easy for her.
After her diagnosis I just couldnt bring myself to understand why. No mother ever wants to hear that their child has something wrong with them. We all want our kids to be perfect & live normally.I knew she was still perfect, but it upset me that her life will be a challenge after challenge & that she will never know what its like to enjoy the simple little things in life. I feel sadened that she will never hear the waves lap over at the beach, or the beautiful sound of birds on a spring morning. Those things are what we would take for granted, but for her they would be precious.
Once i thought i had finally got a grasp of what was going on, i was bombarded with so much information about what was to come for her. but what was to come? Will she have a normal life? Will she talk? I was so worried that she wouldnt be able to talk & communicate & enjoy her life. What did i know about deafness? how was i meant to help her? How will i give her what she needs & still be a good mama to hayden & Blake.
I felt like this would never end. Questions after questions. The one thing i am worried the most about, is that she can talk & listen. I want her to have a fulfilled life & a normal as can be childhood.
Next step was to see the ENT & Eye & Ear Hospital & Australian hearing. The Eye & Ear Hospital asked so many questions about family history, my pregnancy & savannahs general health. With everything i answered they still didnt understand why she was deaf. We where offered genetic testing, but declined because there is absolutely no history what so ever in our families. She mentioned that i may have contracted CMV whilst preg & not have known it, but the likelyhood is 50-50 i guess. So because their is no cause & they are unsure we have been referred to the Eye specialist as well for eye tests. As i found out CMV is a very serious illness in pregnant women that causes deafness in babies..but it also causes ALOT of other problems too. Which is why they need to rule out any Eye problems. Then they discussed her hearing loss & explained to me how the ear worked. I felt extremely stupid at this point because i had absolutely NO idea how it all worked. Savannah has a permanent hearing loss called Bilateral (meaning both) Sensneuiral hearing Loss (SNHL), probably the worse you could have :(
Her left ear is moderate to severe (she cannot hear anything under 65db) and her right is profound (completely deaf).
This would mean she cannot hear normal speech without a hearing aid or a cochlear implant. The ENT said at this stage savannah isnt a candidate for a cochlear as she has some residual hearing in her left. So for the moment we where to be fitted with hearing aides.
On June 16th 2010 Savannah was fitted with her first set of hearing aides...& they are PINK :). Australian Hearing is now our focus point for hearing aids, fittings, new moulds & anything we need for them. Our Audiologist Rebekah is lovely. She has really answered alot of my questions & cleared up alot of things i was unsure about. She has repeatedly told me that with early intervention & alot of therapy savannah could live a full life in the hearing world. This made me feel somewhat better.
Because savannahs ears grow so quickly we are in for new moulds every 13 days. It gets quite full on with all of the appts & going back & forth to them all. Savannah must wear her aides everytime she is awake so that she can get the maximum benefit from them. The more time she spends with them on, the more her auditory nerve is working to keep the brain active for when we start speech therapy. We are lucky that she was diagnosed from birth because it opens alot more doors for us.
Might I add that we are incredibly lucky that the Australian Government fully support & fund ALL hearing aides/equiptment & services to under Children/teens 21years & under for Free. We havent yet paid for anything that she has been through. So i feel very blessed that we are able to focus on savannah & not worry about stress & distractions of where we will get the money.
Since Savannah has had her aides on we have noticed improvement in her ability to respond to sound. At our last appt they had noticed savannah was responding with the right hearing aide in only (this is the profound ear) which is a good thing. It was nice to finally have someone else notice the little things that i was starting to. She went ahead & booked us a test for sound aided & unaided for the 21st July. Obviously i know she will always have a hearing impairment, but i can only hope that the fluid has drained & that she can regain some hearing & have a better chance to hear with the aides.If not then we will work with what we can. My main concern is that the amplification in the aides will be distorting what sound she can hear. Only time will tell with that because if she isnt hearing correctly it will be in her speech. I just have to hold onto hope that things will get better & Savannah will only be stronger from this.
Savannah is now apart of Taralye, a centre for deaf children (http://www.taralye.vic.gov.au) Where she will begin her long road to a hearing life. They are wonderful there. They have support groups, a personal co-ordinator that manages savannah personally & makes sure she is making progress. We are in the progress of making a decision on what we want her to study. At the moment we are heading towards AVT (auditory verbal therapy) this is pretty full on but the results & rewards are amazing! Basically what AVT is, they teach the children to listen to sound & block everything else out, so that they can focus on the speech pattern. Savannah is a great candidate for this because she is so young. They will train her brain to understand sound & keep it working, so that she will talk normally. Its very involved. Otherwise we can take the more natural approach to the speech which taralye are more for. My main concern with that it, that when we hit a bump in the road, she may fall behind too much & then thats when problems start. If the Auditory system is not stimulated enough, cells inn the brain start dying off because the brain thinks it doesnt need it anymore. So then it would be impossible to learn & understand speech.
If we can keep her brain as active as possible from now untill she is 5 we are in for a great chance of speech success.
So far Savannah is on par with normal hearing children, she babbles & talks to herself, which includes a high pitched scream (Im sure she got this from the boys!LOL),she laughs, blows bubbles & is using her mouth to make popping noises. All this would have never crossed my mind, but this is all apart of the brain learning to talk. So far so good, hopefully the aides are working which is why she is still thriving.
So this is where we are at today. About to embark on Therapy & to continue with the aides & monitor her progress. Just praying she will achieve all the wonderful milestones of a normal hearing child.
Her eye appt is 19th July (please pray for some normal results!) & then her re-test for her hearing on the 21st.(improved results would be wonderful!!) I will keep you all updated! xx
Our first Audiologist appt was terrible, Savannah was super fussy & i was frazzled from the stress of her fussing & the possability of another fail. The test seemed to take forever because she was so unsettled. Finally the Lady went ahead & told me that she was getting great responses from the left ear, but nothing at all from the right ear! Tears of frustration,uncertainty & sadness streamed down my face.
She did one final test to check for fluid & both ears came back positive. At this point she said it could be just the fluid, but we needed to wait another 5 weeks & be retested to make sure. As if i could wait 5 weeks? I sent myself crazy thinking the worse, and the what ifs???
5 weeks tunred into a lifetime & over this period we noticed savannah wasnt responding to her name or loud noises that we where making. Of course i was in complete denial & refused to believe anything was wrong. How could anything be wrong with my baby that was so perfect & healthy???
21st May The day of her final hearing tests & i was a wreck. My mum had to take savannah in for her testing, as i was too stressed to sit there trying to keep her calm. Basically more or less i knew something was wrong but didnt want to admit it or hear it. They where in there for what felt like forever, finally they came out & my mum told me that savannah was deaf. After that i broke down. I have never felt so heartbroken & upset in my life. I think it took me 2 days to stop crying everytime i looked into her eyes. That precious innocent face just stared at me & smiled. she had no idea what was going on.
I have cried so many tears thinking about how i could have changed this, or how i could have prevented this? The fact that i will probably never know what happened will probably live with me forever. I felt guilt because i didnt want her to have to be challenged in life. I wanted things to be easy for her.
After her diagnosis I just couldnt bring myself to understand why. No mother ever wants to hear that their child has something wrong with them. We all want our kids to be perfect & live normally.I knew she was still perfect, but it upset me that her life will be a challenge after challenge & that she will never know what its like to enjoy the simple little things in life. I feel sadened that she will never hear the waves lap over at the beach, or the beautiful sound of birds on a spring morning. Those things are what we would take for granted, but for her they would be precious.
Once i thought i had finally got a grasp of what was going on, i was bombarded with so much information about what was to come for her. but what was to come? Will she have a normal life? Will she talk? I was so worried that she wouldnt be able to talk & communicate & enjoy her life. What did i know about deafness? how was i meant to help her? How will i give her what she needs & still be a good mama to hayden & Blake.
I felt like this would never end. Questions after questions. The one thing i am worried the most about, is that she can talk & listen. I want her to have a fulfilled life & a normal as can be childhood.
Next step was to see the ENT & Eye & Ear Hospital & Australian hearing. The Eye & Ear Hospital asked so many questions about family history, my pregnancy & savannahs general health. With everything i answered they still didnt understand why she was deaf. We where offered genetic testing, but declined because there is absolutely no history what so ever in our families. She mentioned that i may have contracted CMV whilst preg & not have known it, but the likelyhood is 50-50 i guess. So because their is no cause & they are unsure we have been referred to the Eye specialist as well for eye tests. As i found out CMV is a very serious illness in pregnant women that causes deafness in babies..but it also causes ALOT of other problems too. Which is why they need to rule out any Eye problems. Then they discussed her hearing loss & explained to me how the ear worked. I felt extremely stupid at this point because i had absolutely NO idea how it all worked. Savannah has a permanent hearing loss called Bilateral (meaning both) Sensneuiral hearing Loss (SNHL), probably the worse you could have :(
Her left ear is moderate to severe (she cannot hear anything under 65db) and her right is profound (completely deaf).
This would mean she cannot hear normal speech without a hearing aid or a cochlear implant. The ENT said at this stage savannah isnt a candidate for a cochlear as she has some residual hearing in her left. So for the moment we where to be fitted with hearing aides.
On June 16th 2010 Savannah was fitted with her first set of hearing aides...& they are PINK :). Australian Hearing is now our focus point for hearing aids, fittings, new moulds & anything we need for them. Our Audiologist Rebekah is lovely. She has really answered alot of my questions & cleared up alot of things i was unsure about. She has repeatedly told me that with early intervention & alot of therapy savannah could live a full life in the hearing world. This made me feel somewhat better.
Because savannahs ears grow so quickly we are in for new moulds every 13 days. It gets quite full on with all of the appts & going back & forth to them all. Savannah must wear her aides everytime she is awake so that she can get the maximum benefit from them. The more time she spends with them on, the more her auditory nerve is working to keep the brain active for when we start speech therapy. We are lucky that she was diagnosed from birth because it opens alot more doors for us.
Might I add that we are incredibly lucky that the Australian Government fully support & fund ALL hearing aides/equiptment & services to under Children/teens 21years & under for Free. We havent yet paid for anything that she has been through. So i feel very blessed that we are able to focus on savannah & not worry about stress & distractions of where we will get the money.
Since Savannah has had her aides on we have noticed improvement in her ability to respond to sound. At our last appt they had noticed savannah was responding with the right hearing aide in only (this is the profound ear) which is a good thing. It was nice to finally have someone else notice the little things that i was starting to. She went ahead & booked us a test for sound aided & unaided for the 21st July. Obviously i know she will always have a hearing impairment, but i can only hope that the fluid has drained & that she can regain some hearing & have a better chance to hear with the aides.If not then we will work with what we can. My main concern is that the amplification in the aides will be distorting what sound she can hear. Only time will tell with that because if she isnt hearing correctly it will be in her speech. I just have to hold onto hope that things will get better & Savannah will only be stronger from this.
Savannah is now apart of Taralye, a centre for deaf children (http://www.taralye.vic.gov.au) Where she will begin her long road to a hearing life. They are wonderful there. They have support groups, a personal co-ordinator that manages savannah personally & makes sure she is making progress. We are in the progress of making a decision on what we want her to study. At the moment we are heading towards AVT (auditory verbal therapy) this is pretty full on but the results & rewards are amazing! Basically what AVT is, they teach the children to listen to sound & block everything else out, so that they can focus on the speech pattern. Savannah is a great candidate for this because she is so young. They will train her brain to understand sound & keep it working, so that she will talk normally. Its very involved. Otherwise we can take the more natural approach to the speech which taralye are more for. My main concern with that it, that when we hit a bump in the road, she may fall behind too much & then thats when problems start. If the Auditory system is not stimulated enough, cells inn the brain start dying off because the brain thinks it doesnt need it anymore. So then it would be impossible to learn & understand speech.
If we can keep her brain as active as possible from now untill she is 5 we are in for a great chance of speech success.
So far Savannah is on par with normal hearing children, she babbles & talks to herself, which includes a high pitched scream (Im sure she got this from the boys!LOL),she laughs, blows bubbles & is using her mouth to make popping noises. All this would have never crossed my mind, but this is all apart of the brain learning to talk. So far so good, hopefully the aides are working which is why she is still thriving.
So this is where we are at today. About to embark on Therapy & to continue with the aides & monitor her progress. Just praying she will achieve all the wonderful milestones of a normal hearing child.
Her eye appt is 19th July (please pray for some normal results!) & then her re-test for her hearing on the 21st.(improved results would be wonderful!!) I will keep you all updated! xx
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