Passing it on...

First...

 I had two great experiences in Oslo. On Sunday Lotte and I had a meeting people that I connected to via the blog and then the day after a woman stopped Lotte (at the hospital/hotel) recognizing her from the blog when she looked for information about her grandson that was born deaf.

So rewarding to meet people that benefit from the blog... A great feeling.

That said, this is my last entry. Well, the last one solo..

Lotte and I decided that Lotte will continue the blog. I will pass it on tho her, and she will keep you informed about herself. But obviously there will be some supervision.. We will see how it goes.

It's a good time to do this as it also marks that she received her upgrade from the Freedom processor to the newest Nucleus 6 last Monday 13. April 2015. A nice, actually.. great, milestone in her life.

We had to wait quite a while for the upgrade. After 10 years with the Freedom we felt it was her turn, but since it's the Norwegian government that provides the CI, and there are fewer funds available, we needed to be patient. Patience is all OK, but we weren't quiet. We did send some letters requesting the upgrade with arguments why Lotte should be chosen. Reasons ranging from participating in sport to starting a new school with equipment that needs to be in place before she makes that step.

A month or so ago we got the email where we were told the good news. Now Lotte can get used to the new and better sound. Get used to the remote control and any other additional add-ones that are compatible with the N6. 

 

Now, a week later, all is going fine. No hiccups, no surprises... The main difference is now that Lotte is using different programs. The remote makes it so much easier that she is actually using them. Before, with the Freedom, she only used 1 program, one volume.. There was no reason for her to change, or at least it was not worth the trouble.

Or, perhaps she was too young to actually do such technical things. Not physically, but there is a maturity required to realise you can control the way you hear.

In any case, the Freedom has done an excellent job getting her where she is now, and the N6 will allow her to confidently make the next step to the next school and the next phase in her life.

I hope Lotte will start informing all the readers about her journey. And perhaps she will change the audience from parents to children. Or just get more children in here.

Time will tell.

How is she really doing?

The question of every parent of course.. but perhaps even more for the parent of a child that was born deaf, started hearing later in life and is now catching up..
Actually.... is Lotte really catching up..??

Homework always seems, or feels, a sort of reference for what Lotte should be able to do. There's a feeling that when a she has a problem with her homework it means that she's behind.
However.. we need to step back, think back to the last meeting we had with the school and remember that she's at above average level.
She's doing fine compared to the rest of the class.. perhaps she would be at a higher level had she not been born deaf, but that is totally irrelevant. She is exactly where she should be.. She doesn't need to be able to know everything..

With this school year there's a change in education. Like Lotte's mother said:

It's no longer "Learning to read.".. it's "Reading to learn."   !!

And that is a difficult transition. We are aware that she reads words, sentences, but she's not thinking about what she reads.. At school they work on that, learning to read & understand the title, look & understand the pictures, think about it, start reading, make metal maps etc.. But its a lot to process...

Many unknown concepts..
Like "They thought the earth was the center of the orbit of the sun."
Who is "they"..? - What is "center"? - What is "orbit"? One sentence read without problems, but not understood...

BUT... is she supposed to understand.? How many other children have problems with the same concepts?
That's something we need to keep in our mind..... we only see Lotte.... we should look at the level of other children as well.. The problems she has might be a general problem at that age in that class...

It's important for us to realise this as the last thing we want to do is push Lotte too much and making her feel as if she is failing, and thereby losing her interest in school and homework.
Because.. we are lucky with that.
Lotte loves to go to school, likes doing homework, likes reading...
A little bit of frustration at times of course but also the joy of overcoming difficulties and succeeding in difficult tasks.. You cannot have the one without the other..

So.. again we will prepare homework in the weekend, structure better when we are going to do what homework. Have the homework done before she starts visiting friends..
All promises we made before, but that dilute in the daily life where parents are sometimes not home when she is done with school.
Parents that let her play with friends instead of insisting that she comes home first, that have to choose between social activities in the street vs academic activities..
Parents that look back in history to see where Lotte comes from and are looking into the future where Lotte is headed.. Trying not to look where she is NOW.
Parents that know that it will be all right in the long run..
Parents that realise that ...

Lotte is exactly where she should be..

Bubbles.. The sequel..

And of course Lotte wants it om the blog....

Recipe from the far east..

Take a "hei, jeg heter Lotte. jeg er 10 år" or "hi. name is Lotte and I am 10 years old"

Put it in the "google translate" pot

Stir, select the Chinese spoon and taste....

大家好，我的名字是樂天我10年

Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ de míngzì shì lètiān wǒ 10 nián

And the you can try yourself..

Then you take the Japanese spoon and taste..

こんにちは、私の名前はロッテです。私は10歳です
Kon'nichiwa, watashinonamaeha Rottedesu.Watashi wa 10-saidesu

And even listen to it... long live the iPad....

Writing.. by Lotte

It doesn't feel such a long time ago that we had to explain Lotte about writing full sentences, let alone full stories. It was hard work to have her to correct her homework in order to write down real answers instead of just repeating random words that were in the question..
(Actually, come to think of it, I recently taught her that she has to answer using the words in the question before she starts looking for the answer.... OK.. this is could become a problem..)

Anyway... Here's a story she had to write for her Norwegian homework.
OK.. it's in Norwegian, so most of you won't be able to read it.. except the names of Justin Beber and Selena Gomes.. but that doesn't matter.
She was with two other friends at home doing their math and Norwegian homework, and had great fun. Each of them wrote their "essay" and when everyone was finished they all had turns reading it before the others; taking great pride in the work they created.

The story that Lotte wrote is just one of those milestones, or wake-up calls, for us to see how well Lotte is doing in school and socially. Catching up unnoticeable as the days tick by.
A wakeup call because in a way.. "life goes on".. and looking out for new developments and milestones is not a daily activity for us. We sometimes need to be stopped in our daily tracks in order to see what has happened.

This blog is another way to reflect upon where Lotte is coming from. It is a way not to focus on what Lotte cannot do (which isn't much) but to see where she is coming from, how all the work that has been put into her, by us, by her, by the school has paid off..

btw..
Lotte has been going back and forth this weekend to a friend rehearsing for a play that they have put together..
Can't wait to see it...

Happy Haloween

Pumpkin time...

Bought ($$ we're going to grow our own next year. $$.)

Carved to hold candles - good job by Lotte's sister
(and eaten.. well, the inside that is.. great soup..)

Scary 
(nothing to do with the pumpkin...)
  

Swimming ?

Swimming with sound.. That has been a while (2008).

But... we got some watertight bags for the BTE and coil, made by Cochlear..

Will see how they work..
Have seen some pictures of grown-ups and it didn't look comfortable.

But I guess it depends on the motivation of Lotte. I'm quite sure that she is looking forward to try them out in the water..

Thanks Bobbi

====================================

Cochlear Aqua Accessory Review

  

Update on the math

A year ago I did an update on Lotte (See here)
Reading through it again I noticed this part:

"Math is a little problematic.. The tables 1-10 go in slowly, and probably by photographic memory.. But she's not the only one in her class... There are many other children that have the same problem... Guess she doesn't have the brain for math... yet... It will come..." (Great to have this blog and go back in history.)

Nowadays she aces the multiplication tables.. A test at school with 2 pages (200 problems) of this stuff and she had 100%.. Practice makes perfect.

What's more important than 100% is the fact that she has a feeling of mastering something. Even though the practice sessions were sometimes long and tedious (mostly it was fun.), she understands the importance of it now, since she sees how much easier things have become.

They now started with division, and she has no problems with it. After all, with the multiplication tables firmly embedded in her memory, she just sees the answers.. Just like we do.

What we did for practice?

• We made cards with the question on one side, answer on the other and went through them. Wrong answer, card back in the pile..


• I also made a spreadsheet that would randomly come up with one column with addition-problems, one with substraction and one with multiplication. Sometimes we let her do this before she would be allowed to use the computer. 


• Downloaded some iPad apps that made it fun. (And needed to be done before she started listning to music or watching videos on the iPad.)


• We also bought a wooden version of the cards. Little blocks with question on one side, answer on the other. Those we used a lot after the summer and I also used them reverse: Showing the answer and Lotte giving me the question... 

Sing along

  

We've had this book/CD for a while now, and lately Lotte enjoys listening to the little songs, and more importantly sing along.

So, on trips with the car, and Lotte present as well, this CD with animal sounds and a song about the animal is played..

Today we noticed that she managed to sing along quite well, in good rhythm and even quite good intonation.

The practice in the last weeks payed off. 

As with many thing, we never pushed it. We allowed for Lotte to get interested herself. We never felt that pushing her to sing along with the right words, rhythm and pitch would not have been helpful. It will come naturally... 

She loves listening to music and videos on YouTube on the iPad. I'm sure exposure to all this music has helped her to make sense out of all the sounds. 

Needles to say, our car will be filled with donkeys, chickens, cows, horses and other farm animals for the next few weeks.. 

Recording is on its way..  

 

  

Blogging made easier..

What's happening...

Time flies.. and updates get less frequent... But perhaps I have found a way to reduce time between posts..

I can now use the iPad to make posts, put the pictures in there, change the font, or color.. 

Add video-, or sound- clips.. So far pretty good. Takes some time to learn to navigate... How to store or upload posts etc. but it's working now.

The program is called Blog Docs  

Direct copy & Paste didn't work that well.. You need to save it to the iPad and then use it..

Entering links like this works fine.

Give it a try... You can connect to your blog. Select any post you want, edit it, and upload it again.

 Blog Docs - Google Docs™ HTML Editor for WordPress Blogger Tumblr & Email

Btw.. Lotte is doing fine.. Great.. 

  

Priceless - Bubbles

Lotte doesn't discover many new sounds, or at least she's hardly surprised when she hears a new sound..


Today she discovered a new one that did surprise her. The sound of bubbles coming from her coke!!

At first she said "what's that.?" when she poured her coke.
Then we let her listen with her ear on top of the glass with coke.
As she listened, a big grin came on her face..

Priceless.!!

 

Update:
And of course Lotte wants it om the blog....

"I am deaf when I am asleep"..

Each morning the children watch the "childrens news" from Holland.. (Jeugdjournaal)

Lotte's sister had sent in a picture regarding the weather, and it was shown in the broadcast in the evening..

So.. Lotte wants to send something to the Dutch television as well... OK.. Why don't you make a video.. Write down what you want to say, and we will tape it...

Good idea... 

Lotte starts writing, saying it out loud....... We’re listning to what she’s going to tell the Dutch viewers....

Hello.

My name is Lotte.

I am 9 years old.

I am deaf when I sleep.

I have CI so I can hear...

WOW... so that's how she sees it.. how she experiences it... 

We’ll leave it at this... no depth interview about how she feels etc.. we’ll just take this little pearl of wisdom and enjoy it..

(Video below (Dutch and Norwegian) Subtitles added.... direct link here)