Farm Life

We are at my Mum and Dad’s farm, ‘Amaroo’,  in the Hunter Valley at the moment.  Imogen and Henry are loving the farm life and enjoying spending time with their grandparents. 

One focus of learning for Henry recently has been animals- their names, the sounds they make, their colour and feel.  Children’s books and toys are always filled with animals so they have always been a great thing to learn about.  However nothing beats the real thing.  Amaroo provides a rich source of sounds and opportunities to talk the different animals that Henry now sees every day.  He is getting really good at imitating the ‘moo’ sound whenever Grandma takes him for a walk to see the cows.  He is not quite spontaneously naming them that first, but he definitely understands that the ‘moo’ sound belongs with the cows.  Amaroo has a huge variety of (noisy) birds and Henry can immediately hear the sound and start looking for where the bird is – ie. he knows that it is a bird making the sound and not something else.  Every day he is learning about new sounds and what they relate to –the sound of leaves crunching as he crawls through the autumn leaves, the sound of the wind chimes blowing in the wind, the running creek, Grandpa Jack starting the tractor, Mindy the dog yelping, Uncle Jase throwing the basketball against the backboard, Uncle Matt riding the skateboard.   My little boy who is profoundly deaf- all these sounds he hears, and processes and learns to associate meaning to.  I am still amazed how lucky we are!

Henry helping Grandma and Grandpa with the cows

Henry and Imogen on the bike

Henry and Grandpa Jack

Always learning - on the bike again

Feeling Thankful

For the past three months we have been living in accommodation provided to us by the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) in Sydney.  I feel such an overwhelming depth of gratitude; I really don’t know how to express how thankful I am.  We were living overseas when we starting investigating the possibility of cochlear implants for Henry.  The decision to implant your baby is stressful enough, but for me that was clouded enormously with the stress of worrying about where we would stay if we had to come back for the surgery and how we would manage all the appointments required for Henry without compromising his journey to hearing.  It is not something you can just fly in for and leave again.  During the first year, the mapping (fine tuning of the sound received by the cochlear implant) and therapy requirements are huge.  We came up with a plan whereby we would come to Sydney for three months for the surgery and intense mapping and therapy afterwards, then return to Sydney every three months after that.  We just had to find somewhere for stay for the three months of surgery and follow up.  I would have been happy to rent somewhere, but we had no furniture, and furnished rentals are SO expensive!  We even looked at house swapping, but it was just going to be so difficult.  We were at a loss.  Henry was only confirmed to actually require the implants in December 2010, and the surgery date was booked for January 2011.  While we were so happy that things could be expedited as they were, it just didn’t give us a chance to pack up our life in Dubai and move to Australia in time, even if we wanted to.  So I was immensely thankful when we were offered the opportunity to stay on campus at RIDBC for the three most important months in Henry’s life.

Our house here- cottage 365 – has become our temporary home and I have such special memories of our time here.  I am really sad that we will be leaving next week, and I’m sure the kids will feel the same.  When we arrived here, off our 16 hour flight from Dubai, we had with us a ten month old baby who, as far as I know, had never heard a sound.  Henry was gorgeous and clearly intelligent, but he was in his own world.  He didn’t engage with us.  Now, we leave here with a 13 month old boy who just has so much charisma.  He wants to be involved with everything!  I don’t know how to describe it, but he participates in our life.  From the moment he wakes up in the morning, he doesn’t stop communicating.  Asking questions- he hears a sound outside and he looks at me and points and coos- ‘what was that mama?’ and wait for me to tell him, or better show him.  He hears Immi entering the room and he is so excited – where is she? What is she going to do next? (It could be anything!!!)  He even recognises Will’s voice on Skype when he calls in and points and tries to bang on the keyboard.

Henry and I had a whirlwind trip to Australia in December and met with the Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre (SCIC).  At the time, we were told that Henry was covered for just one implant, but there was a chance that donations which had been made to SCIC could be used to cover the second.  Shortly before our trip to Australia for the surgery we were informed that Henry would indeed receive bilateral (two) cochlear implants.

William and I will be eternally grateful for the support, guidance and assistance provided to us by RIDBC and SCIC.  The expression ‘life changing’ is bantered about, however this truly has impacted upon our, and most importantly Henry’s, life and set him on an amazing path forward.  I truly believe there is nothing he cannot do now. 

Thank you RIDBC and SCIC.

Will and Henry out the front of the house when we first arrived

Imogen out the front, leaving for pre-school.  While we were here, she attended the Vision-Ed Pre School on campus and absolutely loved it.

Henry and Grandma Corinna out the front of Cottage 365

Imogen and Henry

Goals

Over the last couple of weeks, Henry’s therapist Melissa and I have been working to put together a plan of Henry’s goals for the next six months.  I like having a plan to work to – I am a ‘goal’ person anyway, so it suits me well to have things to aim for with Henry.

Some of the things we will be aiming for Henry are (with Melissa’s explanation of why it is important in brackets):

• Audition: Understands the meaning associated with environmental sounds.  (This will form the basis of future language development);
• Receptive Language: Understands familiar key words/instructions without gestures such as ‘not, ‘stop’, ‘come here’ and ‘ta for mummy’ (Responding to these words/instructions means that Henry can detect the word, recognise its meaning and respond appropriately).
• Expressive Language: Attends to familiar songs and responds by vocalising and/or copying rhythm/actions. (Henry is developing his ability to recall previous experiences and should start to connect actions to words.  Also, imitating actions usually precedes a child’s ability to imitate words).
• Social Communication: Demonstrate vocal turn-taking such as vocal play, joining in singing or conversational turn-taking. (This goal focuses on Henry’s interaction and participation skills.  It also helps him understand that sound can be used for different purposes).
• Speech: Begins to copy one or more features of a new word immediately after hearing it, eg. syllable number, vowel sounds, intonation, duration, etc.  (Henry will need to practice using the various features of speech such as pitch, volume and duration.  His speech production will also help us to understand what he is hearing).
• Cognition skills: Uses one object to represent another, eg. pretends block is a car or a phone.  (Using one object to represent another is a concrete substitution which precedes the child’s ability to represent an object with a word which is an abstract substitution).

Melissa put together the plan and has suggested it is reasonable to expect Henry to be able to achieve these things in six months.  I plan to work really hard with Henry and actually my goal is to have him complete all these goals in four months.  Henry, your Mummy has high expectations of you!!!!

An inspiring, beautiful video clip

In this ad (shot in 2000 for the Hear and Say Centre in Brisbane), James, a young boy recounts his journey from being diagnosed as profoundly deaf and the doctors telling his parents that he would never be able to speak or listen to music, to 11 years of age and becoming an Irish Dancing champion.