three. two. one. contact!

we found another use for contact paper! 

you know the sticky paper you use to line your drawers?  pull it out of your closet, it’s time to get rid of your scraps.  

how to:

cut a large piece of contact paper. place it on a piece of construction paper so the adhesive side is facing outward. staple the contact paper and construction paper on each corner. once it is nice and secure get out your pile of knick knacks. such as feathers, cut up tissue paper, yarn, googly eyes, cheerios, pictures, etc. 

now stick away!

remember to talk about…”soft feathers”, “sticky paper”, “crunchy tissue paper”, “smooth eyes”

language: meal and snack time

food brings out the best in all of us! 

particularly the buttery, sugary kind.

wouldn’t you agree?  i would say “more” if it meant i got another bite of one of those pieces of heaven.

(reese and grandma)

that is true for alexander and now reese, especially concerning food and language development.  meal time and language development go hand in hand.

in a recent river school newsletter it focuses on making the most out of meal time.  it’s awesome and full of easy tips.

i was reminded to move reese so her high chair was backed against the window so as we talk to her she can better see our lips and facial expressions. good idea? yup!

(alexander)

for more meal and language activities visit one of my previous posts: meal mats or this one DIY family meal mat

(click to enlarge)

jammin’ from my crib to yours

 

rockin’ all day long.

incorporate music into your daily routine with the ideas below.

keep singing!

(click to enlarge images).

if you have ever watched TED talks, you know how inspiring they are. I would highly recommend this one: Charles Limb: Building the Musical Muscle

language: february love

The River School is an outstanding private school in DC that is known for their successful education experiences with both the oral and speaking deaf community.  Weekly, Reese and I visit with a handful of other parents to discuss best practices, and participate in infant group therapy.

They have agreed to let me post their monthly infant newsletter on my blog to share with you all, who have both hearing and deaf children. 

Whether or not your child can hear, taking time out to do one-on-one activities promotes so much goodness in all aspects of development.

Without delay, heeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrreeeee’s February!

(click on image).

More February themed ideas include:

• Gather as many red items you can find in your toy collection and introduce the “red ball”, “red bear”, “red block”. Ask questions using red before the noun. The purpose is to help the child understand there is a relationship between all the objects. The sounds are the same. Understanding and identifying different colors comes later down the road.
• Wake up your infants senses by freezing heart ice cubes (any ice cubes would do) and play away. Touching, eating, and playing.

• Make red jello jigglers and let your infant go to town.  This is a great language activity: “Its squishy”, “squeeze the jello”, “It’s so cold”, “poke, poke, poke”, “mmm, yummy!”                          Beware, it’s messy, but fun!

• As suggested in the article above, teach your infant how to blow kisses. “Kiss the ____” and be sure to act it out with stuffed animals or brothers. They love the extra affection. 
• Use your paper/ material scraps to make a Valentine’s Texture Book.

first, next, then, last.

the perfect conversation tool has been photos from a therapy session that were printed and laminated months ago. last week they were pulled out and used multiple times since then.

to recall his memory i told him the activity behind the pictures. then mixed the photos up and scattered them across the floor.   we reviewed the story again and through listening only he was challenged to find the appropriate picture and line it up next to me. for instance, “alexander, first we poured the water into the bowl. can you find the picture where we poured water? can you say ‘pour water’? good. 

next we squeezed the soap into the bowl. where is the picture showing us squeezing soap?” and so on…

for further conversation i asked what else we washed in the bubbles? did your fingers get wet or were they dry?

this activity is easy enough for my other kids to lead without my help. most of the time they put their own spin on it and alexander ends up speaking more to them then me.

perfect.

Rehab

 

We have been busy working with Alexander’s newly activated ear.  Being apart of his rehabilitation process I am continually reminded how amazing the brain is.  Just the fact that the brain processes billions of pieces of information without us asking it too makes me grateful for the one I have.  With Alexander’s brain, I feel as though we are spoon feeding it,  shoveling down jars of information it has not yet experienced. 

I’ve often imagined myself in therapy having a conversation directly with Alexander’s brain. It might go something like this, “Brain, when I say “Ha, Ha, Ha”, I am referring to a jack-o-lantern. Do you see why? It is really a pumpkin, but there is a face carved in it and it looks as though it is laughing…”

With a cochlear implant, Alexander must learn to process sound and develop meaningful use of acoustic input. Some of the cognitive processes that result in meaningful use of sound are as follows: attention to sound through time, the ability to judge two sounds as same or different, auditory imagery and memory for auditory images, memory span for auditory events, maintenance of the sound sequences, associating sounds with their referents, use of sound for linguistic purposes and retrieval of sound images for linguistic expression (Daniel, et. al., 1999, Pisoni and Geers, 1998).

Since he processes the sound well we have focused on mouth time which include oral sensory-motor exercises. His therapist at chattering children has given me some great ideas.

ORAL SENSORY-MOTOR EXERCISES
• Imitate mouth postures (open, closed; tongue in, out)
• Use toothbrush to stimulate cheeks, lips, tongue
• Explore frozen metal spoons on cheeks and inside mouth
• Rub lotion on cheeks
• Rub lemonade or cherry powder on lips
• Imitate tongue movements (elevate, depress, lateralize)
• Practice controlled airflow by blowing feathers, cotton balls, tissue paper
• Lick lollipops
• Imitate sequence of oral positions (“ooee, ooee”)
• Recall 2 or more speech sounds in order (“mm-ah-sh”)
• Hold articulatory position for a few seconds
• Sequence back (“k”) and front (“t”) sounds

Symbol Play is another helpful listening tool. The goal is for Alexander to be familiar with common sounds and offer them a systematic and predictable way to organize the sounds. The /oo/ and /m/ sound are difficult to distinguish, so I have worked specifically with him listening for the difference between the two.

 

SYMBOL SOUND EXAMPLE
“oo” shoe
“ee” tea
“ah” box
“mm” me
“sh” she
“l” leaf

 

A recommendation:

A few months ago Alexander’s amazing therapist  helped him make a family placemat. On one side they cut out our printed faces then glued and laminated them to the placemat.  On the other side they glued foods that he was familiar with.  As a result of this his language jumped.  He is able to speak and sign all of his family members and the foods he regularly eats.

a house of language

when the day comes that alexander talks back to me,

i will surely regret (for a minute)
all of the hard work we have invested into

his language development.
for now, we will continue to saturate him in a

language rich environment.

goodness, he is lucky i like to talk.

in every moment of the day,

there is a chance to incorporate some type of
language development.
here are some ideas for your 6 month old and beyond

you may find helpful at home.

meal mats

i finally finished this laminated meal mat for alexander.
my friend, Marielle's mom sent me the link.
thanks so much, we have really enjoyed it!

it has 2 sides to it. this particular one is for a 6-12 month-old.
for now we point to a picture and make the sound.
i am just beginning to give him a cheerio and asking him to
"put it on the fire engine, woo woo woo".
my goal is for him to repeat the sound and locate the fire engine.

if you would like to make one click here.
if you would like to make one for your 12-24 month-old click here

it is working!

experience books

alexander's audiologist suggested i make an experience book.

an experience book is a photo book that is comprised of a group of photos
all focused on one topic or a group of topics with one outcome.
or it can really be anything you want it to be.

i made a few different ones to see what would work the best.
the first one was made by cutting up extra 12x12 pieces of paper into 4th's.
then with the scrapes i make 30+ background pages ready for pictures to be glued to them.

in an effort to have my 2 older boys read the book with alexander i included pictures of them in the book.


the focus of the book is
basic listening sounds.
here are a few of the pages:


"look, it is a duck. quack, quack, quack. yes, quack says the duck"

"mmmm, yummy. you're eating cake, yummy"

"shhh, it is a baby. shhh the baby is sleeping"

"ahh aha ahh, it is an airplane. it goes up, up,up dooooooooown"

"neigh! neigh says the horse"

here is another quick and easy photo book (target $2).

the focus of the book is farm animals and their noises.

we went to our local farm, snapped a few pictures,

printed them out and slide them in.

this is a great book for the car or to keep in a purse.

this is an example photo used in the book.
i plan to make a whole basket of them.
we recently went to the aquarium in baltimore,

so hopefully i will do that one next.
the important part is recreating the experiences the kids have had
through photos then talking about them

over and over again.

art folder


what do you do with all of the art project the kids bring home?
put them on the already crowded fridge?
throw them away?

here is an idea, an art folder to slip under their bed or in a closet.

what you do:

• purchase the largest size of poster board.
• fold it in half.
• staple the side edges together or hole punch the sides and let you crafty child sew with yarn the sides.
• let them decorate their new art work folder how ever they want too.

my 3-year-old wanted to use his hand artwork

to decorate the outside of his art folder.
the hand art is made on sunday's at church.

my thoughtful sister-in-law, stephanie,
surprised the kids with this book for christmas.
maybe your children are angels at church,
so you don't need this book suggestion.
stephanie has sat with us too many times
to know my boys need something to do while they listen.

what shape is it?

Sometimes it is difficult to remember which shape
is the rectangle and which is the square?
my 3-year-old has been mixing up the shapes
lately so i decided to make a game out of it.

(the idea was adapted from logan's mom)

what you need:

• tape
• bean bags or other toys

begin
as i taped them down i would say what shape i was making
and then i would make up a song to the tune of 'the more we get together'.

for instance, "this is the rectangle, the rectangle, the rectangle, this is the rectangle, it is very long." (i am sure you can add you own creativity too it)


game 1
i took a bin of animals and asked him to put an animal on the ____ (square or circle). this would help review the shapes.


game 2
then he got to stand on a line and throw bean bags into the shapes and he would tell me what shape it landed in. or i would put the bean bag on a shape and he would tell me which one i put it on.


game 3
he found objects around the house that were the shape of the rectangle, square, octagon, triangle, circle, oval and whatever else you want to work on. then he was asked to put them on the correct shape.

i left them there for a week and once he felt he knew the shape
we would do a shape dance, pull it off the carpet
and threw it away.



if you like these ideas, i will share more.
for now, enjoy!
monica

"mooooo"

first of all i am all for great deals!

at target in the $1 bin i found plastic

cows, horses, goats, and pigs.

they are great purchases for

therapy/playtime sessions at home.

i have been showing him the cow,

"moo says the cow.

the cow says moo."

for the past week.

this morning there was a breakthrough.

he responded, "oooo" several times

after showing him the cow.

not all therapy sessions are successful.

sometimes alexander just looks and smiles,

then is off to find a ball.

yesterday was not the case,

it was a fabulous session.

alexander not only signed more,

but simultaneously said, "mmm".

during the sound check we used instruments

to make noises 3ft and then 6ft away.

he turned to all of the noises even while being distracted.

then he imitated some ling sounds the therapist made.

he only was able to do it a few times before getting distracted.

what is next?

tomorrow i will add the hearing aid.

here's to surround sound!

You said "ball!?"

"car...beep! beep!"

"go, go, go..stop!"

"airplane...aaaah"

book reading. talking. giggling. pointing.

starting from the beginning introducing language.

from

small

beginnings

come

great

things.

this video was taken a week ago. if you notice alexander responds with a verbal noise.
that was a first.

it was just the beginning.

"alexander, would you like a ball or a train?" i asked him today.
"baaall" is what he responded and preceded to push it across the floor.
it happened time and time again. (see video clip on 'rudy speaks' post).

big balls, bumpy balls, noisy balls, soft balls

were pulled out of the basket in our excitement to reinforce what he knew to be a ball.
alexander babbling?

always hoped for, and imaged, but out of reach.

now it is the time.
we are just getting started.

when you jump up and down
you feel
your bare feet smack the hard floor...
simultaneously
you hear
them hit the ground.
these are some of alexander's first moments

hearing his feet smack the ground.

he always smiles, but not this big. :)

What does an implant sound like?

I showed my husband a simulation of what it may sound like to have an implant. You may find it useful too.

Click HERE to listen.

Once you are at the website click on the Listen to 22 Channels.

So what is your reaction?

From my understanding when the surgeon places the implant into the cochlea the implanted electrode piece has 22 channels on it. The hope is to stimulate all 22 channels to the brain. The voice clip represents what it would sound like with 22 channels, but in many cases only 16-18 are actually stimulated. Does that make sense?

Alexander with his therapist one month ago.

Here we are teaching Alexander that he will have to give a verbal cue to ask for the alligator to come back and tickle his toes. Our expectation once he receives the implant is that he will have a lot more verbal output when he is engaged in his therapy activities.