Sienna's immersed in language!

Ways in which Sienna is immersed in language:

1. I have set my home goals along side of our SLP’s goals. I review them monthly, update it and change if necessary.

2. We have weekly SLP sessions in Peace River.

3. We have alone play time for at least 1 hour a day some activities include playing with Little People (fantastic because we play house and use everyday vocabulary like bath, wash your hands, open the fridge, sit, sleep, work on the computer, etc…), we also dress our dolls (clothing vocabulary), feed her, put her bed, sing to her, we do flashcards, play with farm animals etc…

4. We read to her every day!

5. I sing songs… she is already recognizing certain songs… some songs are Head, shoulders, knees and Toes, Wash your hands, Clean-up, Brush your teeth. I kind of makeup songs to children’s songs that I know.

6. We try to repeat the same vocabulary all day long… example, when it’s time to eat, I have her grab a plate, a cup, a spoon, a fork, etc…. when it’s time to dress, I’ll name all the clothing.

7. We talk, talk, talk! ( I have to remind myself often to use my words to describe what we are doing.)


Because we are in a remote area and we don’t have many resources, my role is extremely important in Sienna’s speech therapy. I am very fortunate that I can balance work with staying home with her. I do substitute teach in the elementary school in Falher about 2-3 days a week which is enough to get me out of the house. A few weeks ago, we visited the Grade 3 class which has studied Sound and Hearing in Science. Sienna and I went into their classroom and I spoke to them about cochlear implants, how they work, what is deafness, why children are and become deaf, etc… I would like to visit the other grades someday as it is educating for everyone especially because she is the only child with cochlear implants in our area. I had their attention for the entire 30 minutes and well my little Sunshine Sienna modeled her beautiful CI’s and she had their full attention too.


**Tuesday, Feb 16th, we go for our 6 month post-activation audiology and language evaluation. I am very excited for this as we have not really had any formal language assessment done so far and it will be very interesting to see where she is. In my eyes, which is really what truly matters, she is doing exceptionally well. I am so proud of her, she is my little bionic miracle!

JTC- Distant Learning- Lesson 1

We survived the holidays and I have to say it was the best Christmas ever. Why? Because Sienna’s walking, hearing, and speaking; because our children are older and the excitement and joy I live through their eyes is heart-warming; because we were surrounded by family who love us and would do anything for us.

Over the holidays, I finally completed my first distant learning lesson with the John Tracy Clinic. It is free and they are very helpful. Here is what stood out from

Lesson 1 –Informal Assessment.

· Remember to get her attention with your voice.
· TALK, TALK, TALK!! (At the beginning, I was apprehensive about this cause I didn’t want to over stimulate her but I can say now at 5 months post-activation, she is ready to hear it all… in short sentences of course!)
· When hearing a sound- point to the ear and say “I heard that!”
· Keep a binder with sections including Audiological Evaluation, Informal Assesements, etc…
· Do a Ling-Six Sound check daily.
· Always gain evidence about her receptive language and expressive language but don’t make her feel like she is being tested.
· Remember, all children with or without hearing loss, usually don’t pronounce their first words clearly. (I need to remind myself of this.)
· Remember, most hearing children are not understood by unfamiliar listeners when they first begin to talk. (I also need to remind myself of this.)
· She’ll begin with 1 word utterances, when she has between 50-100, she may attempt at producing little sentences.
· Speech sounds differ in 3 ways: duration, intensity and pitch. (They make you aware of this and to check to see if your child is doing any of these.)
· Listening should be fun!
· It takes time and repetition for her to learn that you expect her to listen. (This is so true.)
· They finished it off with some great activities!

Sienna is doing very well. She has about 10 spoken words like mom, dad, Rylee, bye, non, merci, assis, puppy, meow, and many sounds with association like a dog’s bark, a sheeps “baaaa”, an airplane goes “aaaa”, etc… As for her receptive language, she is well over 30 words. For a quiet person who doesn’t talk much, I have to remind myself to talk, talk, and talk. I also find she hasn't been repeating as much as she had been in December, she is stuck on the same 10 words. I've been told that this is a normal part in language development, which is a relief. Hopefully it is just that.

I can’t wait to begin Lesson 2- Reinforcing Behavior (Just what I need for my 2.5 year old.)

Christmas video!

Enjoy!

More appointments...

We just returned from Edmonton today, back from a weekend of appointments, shopping and visiting. We had 2 appointments for Sienna.

1. Lung Specialist- We were told that Sienna’s airways are always constricted which means it takes a lot out of her to breathe right. This did not come too much as a surprise; thus the reason I requested an appointment with a lung specialist. Sienna is always sick. Since a young age, she seems to get a cold easily and often which usually led to bronchiolitis, vomiting when she coughed, inhalers to calm her breathing, and many trips to the hospital. While we were there, he noticed her sides were in-drawing meaning she was having hard time breathing. I could not see this, in my eyes, she did not have a runny nose nor a cough therefore she was healthy. She did get an allergy test and surprisingly she is allergic to cats, dogs, dust mites and feathers. Well now that we know her airways are fragile, we must fix it. Because of her CMV, she has poor muscle tone which he says is contributing to the constricted airways. Therefore we must continue doing exercises to strengthen her trunk tone. Second, he put her on QVAR, a corticosteroid oral inhaler and ventilin daily until she gets stronger. We will return to see him in 4 months.
   
   2-Endocrinologist (Hormone Specialist)- CMV does cause poor growth, however, our pediatrician at the Glenrose recommended that we see a hormone specialist to make sure that we are not overlooking what could be a factor in Sienna’s poor growth. So after a detailed review of Sienna’s history and our history; he came to the conclusion that Sienna’s poor weight gain is not due to her growth hormones but due to her having congenital CMV and to the fact that Kevin and I are small people. We return to see him in 6 months. According to their chart, with her weight and height of that day, she is actually gaining at a faster rate. Yeah! Let’s keep up the trend! She weighs 20lbs. 13oz..

We had a fantastic visit with my cousins, Darcy and Lisa, and our kids played, played, played. They were great hosts and took very good care of us, thank-you!

We also had a chance to visit some friends who we’ve been in touch with since May 09. A mutual friend introduced us because their daughter, Allison, just received bilateral cochlear implants last spring. Since then we’ve been in touch by phone and email so we decided to finally put a face to their friendly voices. We had a great time; it was such a pleasure to meet them and to share our stories.

Seeing that it is -40C here in northern Alberta, yes -40C, which marks the beginning of our cold winter, I am very happy that our next Edmonton appointment ( 4.5 hours away) is in mid February…. hopefully, after the brutal cold has past.

All I want for Christmas … I already have!!

There’s something different about Christmas this year. I couldn’t quite figure it out until a moment of gratitude swept through me about a week ago.

It’s not about the gifts, it’s not about the stress, it’s not about the go, go go like this time of the year usually brings. This year is different for me because really the only thing that matters is our health and our family. It will be exactly 1 year on December 19th, that we found out that Sienna was deaf. What an early Christmas gift that was!! As I take a look back, I cannot believe what our family has gone through. Today, my little girl is hearing and she is walking (not 100% but it is official), and that itself is a blessing, a miracle, a gift from God. I really don’t want anything else.

I just can’t come around to the entire gift giving thing. It’s just things. Can’t we just be grateful at this time of the year for the gift of health, the gift of family, the gift of laughter? Please take this moment to really be thankful for those gifts which surrounds you. How do we teach a 2 year old and a 5 year old that Christmas is not about the gifts it’s about family? With our actions and ours words, I hope that they see it as we see it.

All I want for Christmas... I already have!

The gift of hearing!

The gift of a healthy family!

Sienna's on fire!

Just when we get discouraged,

Sienna comes around and makes us proud.

This last month has blown us away.

Her language skills are developing.

She surprises us everyday.

Everyday, I add a word to her receptive language.

She attempts to repeat difficult sounds.

She has about 15 speech sounds

and about 30 receptive words.

When I sing, she tries too, it is so neat.

We had an audiologist appointment this week at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital and they were amazed at how well Sienna is doing. She is just about 4 months post activation and she has a great start on her language development. We did a sound booth test and she is hearing sounds at a 15 db and speech sounds at a 25 db.

Sienna is doing so well because of 2 reasons,

1) She is a sponge, she loves to imitate, she is absorbing it all





2) Her older sister Rylee, she does everything Rylee does, she listens to her, she mimics her every move.

Rylee is my #1 language tool.

Rylee is her #1 idol.

She said it... the 3 letter word!!

She said it, the word I've been waiting a long time to hear. I started playing a peg board game with Sienna to encourage speech. It goes a little something like this...

I put a peg up to my cheek and say a sound ex:baba

Rylee or a 2nd person will repeat the action and the sound

Then, Sienna takes the peg, holds it to her chin and repeats the sound

then puts the peg in the board!

Fantastic activity...just started it yesterday.

Today, when doing this activity, she repeated

baba

mmmm

ah

ou

Then for the first time, I thought I would try the 3 letter word...

I said it, Rylee said it and I couldn't believe my ears...

Sienna said it, as clear as day,

MUM!

Of course, her father wanted me to try DAD

so I did and she did it,

DADA!

We are so proud of her!