So basically I'm still sitting on the CI fence. I have been back & forth for weeks now. Last week after looking back over Savannahs Aided Audio gram, i had noticed & realized that her moderate ear (the "good" ear as we like to call it) does hear all speech sounds UNTILL the 4000Hz where she doesn't start hearing until 45db.
To me i had never thought anything of it to be honest until our speech coordinator pointed out that Savannah is clearing missing hearing the "f" & "Th" sounds which sit at 30db on the 4000hz.
How could i have missed this??? How on earth did the implant clinic send me away when my daughter isn't hearing everything
she needs?????
Apparently i was informed that these speech sounds can be made even if a child isn't hearing them?? (would love some clarification here)
I am starting to wonder if I'm actually being pushed aside with bogus information or if this is actually correct?
Can a child that CANNOT hear the "f" & "Th" Sounds truly be able to speak & learn speech??
As i have said before my daughter is deaf regardless of Ha's or not, she was born deaf & will always be deaf BUT why on earth is she not a candidate??
Before i go back to our Audi on Sept 1st I need to get some more info & feedback I would like to welcome ANYONE who is willing to share any experience with both Ha's & Implants that understands what I'm saying, or wears Ha's & is not able to hear some of the speech on the 4000Hz.
Are these as important as i think they are? Will this hinder my child? Remembering that my daughter is profoundly deaf on her right ear.
Thanks :)
To me i had never thought anything of it to be honest until our speech coordinator pointed out that Savannah is clearing missing hearing the "f" & "Th" sounds which sit at 30db on the 4000hz.
How could i have missed this??? How on earth did the implant clinic send me away when my daughter isn't hearing everything
she needs?????
Apparently i was informed that these speech sounds can be made even if a child isn't hearing them?? (would love some clarification here)
I am starting to wonder if I'm actually being pushed aside with bogus information or if this is actually correct?
Can a child that CANNOT hear the "f" & "Th" Sounds truly be able to speak & learn speech??
As i have said before my daughter is deaf regardless of Ha's or not, she was born deaf & will always be deaf BUT why on earth is she not a candidate??
Before i go back to our Audi on Sept 1st I need to get some more info & feedback I would like to welcome ANYONE who is willing to share any experience with both Ha's & Implants that understands what I'm saying, or wears Ha's & is not able to hear some of the speech on the 4000Hz.
Are these as important as i think they are? Will this hinder my child? Remembering that my daughter is profoundly deaf on her right ear.
Thanks :)
Hi, Melinda. Tammy Kenny and I took our kids to the John Tracy Clinic over the summer. We were told by their staff that a child must hear ALL sounds in order to properly make them. We speak because we hear and we speak what we hear.
ReplyDeleteSomething to think about is as your precious girl gets older and enters elementary school, how is she going to properly spell words if she can't hear the teacher say the sounds. Spelling tests and plurals among other words will be quite difficult for her.
Our son is bimodal (CI/HA) user with a profound loss in one ear and moderate to moderately severe in the other. Being bimodal has made a huge impact on his language development and his speech production.
Trust your mama gut and you will make the right decisions.
Sorry to drop back by for another comment but, another thing that John Tracy staffers recommend is an acoustically tuned hearing aid ear mold to help with the high frequency sounds. There was a child there with an issue in the high frequencies and this type of ear mold was the first thing that their audiological staff recommended...something to ask about maybe??
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this for a while and I'm still at a loss for what to say or advise. I wore hearing aids from 3 years - 17 years old (95 db loss in both ears) before becoming implanted at 17 on my right ear and I know it makes a huge difference in being able hear the sounds in order to say them. However, it's not impossible to say the sounds without hearing them...but it will take forever and require lots of repetition because they simply don't have much meaning to a deaf child.
ReplyDeleteAt the very least, it seems that your daughter could be unilaterally implanted and start reaping benefits language-wise right away.
Firstly thankyou for the reply Kat. Its nice to know that your son is doing so well with the ha/ci. I never knew about the acoustically tunes hearing aid mould! i will definately ask our audiologist this week! I thought the same as if you can hear it you can say it. But aparently you can...well thats what the speechy at her school says :/
ReplyDeleteEricka thankyou also for your input. I know its hard to give advice sometimes but i appreciate it & appreciate your view as well. If you dont mind me asking, how did you hear with your loss & ha's? did u get enough that you could hear & understand speech?? what is your speech like? and compared to now, would you recommend the implant?
Is it selfish of me to say that with 3 other small kids, i just do not have the time to always give Savannah for her speech & in that i feel bad, as like you said it will take her a LONG time to perfect those sounds she doesnt hear.
I actually spoke to an audiologist from Cochlear today at my daughters school & he told me that a CI will most likely not work for her as the brain will reject it & only hear through the HA on the moderate side??? I swear i get a different answer each time :( I reall thought having an implant & a mod ear with a HA would give you an exceptional amount of access to ALL speech sounds..
Hi Melinda, I stopped wearing my HA on my left ear within one year of wearing my CI on my right because it sounded so bad from the HA side compared to the CI side. For me, the CI was far, far better than any sound I could get from my HA. As a parent of a CI child, I can totally get that it is a tremendous amount of work to do the speech and listening therapy and I feel like it makes a huge difference knowing that Sophia is getting more input. I cannot believe the Cochlear audiologist said that the CI will not work because Savannah's brain will prefer the HA. I have heard that some kids have had to keep off the 1st CI implant temporarily (a few days at a time) to trick the brain in accepting the 2nd and so they can hear with both better.
ReplyDeleteWith just my HA's I depended mostly on lipreading and was very frustrated as I grew up because I missed out on so much language and speech and couldn't enjoy conversations. I was stressed in school. I was studying so hard just to keep up with my peers. I think I became a much happier person after I was implanted. My speech was not as good as it is now and my speech tone had that 'deaf' sound. I really would recommend getting that one ear implanted for Savannah, and if it doesn't work, well at least you tried all you could. Better to get it implanted than not, I would say.
For some reason I'm not getting the reply notification from you in the comments section -- I would have responded sooner if I knew you had a question for me! Feel free to email me at erikasmith05 at gmail dot com if you need to.
ReplyDeleteYou might need to find a different choclear implant/ audiologist center to recommend an implant i.e., go to a different city etc. You are getting misinformation. My son has a moderate loss in his HA ear and a severe loss in his left ear. He got a CI on the left ear. At 2 yrs. old kids can qualify for a CI with a severe loss. He has NO trouble hearing bimodally. He hears great and his language has exploded. His last soundbooth was 10-15 db.
ReplyDeleteWOW thats just amazing results from the booth test! Im not sure where in the wide world you are, but if your in Australia do u know if there is something around that says after 2 they can implant in anything worse than severe? The CI clinic where pretty straight down the line with us & said Unless Savannah's hearing deteriorates she isnt a candidate. The CI clinic we went to is the only one in our state, it would require us to travel 8hrs + to investigate another clinic, which im not 100% sure you can actually do. My daughters friend is Mod in her HA ear & wears an implant on her other ear but the reason they implanted her was because she has LVAS. At this stage we are letting Savannah continue with just the Ha's as she is making amazing progress, but once she turns 2 next march we will be making sure she is re-evaluated. I would think that your son being hearing bimodally would be nothing but benefit for him which is why i dont understand why Savannah isnt a candidate seeing as though her R ear is profound. Thankyou though for the comment you have given me some clarity & some more things to think about :)
ReplyDelete