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.

More and better swimming

It's been a couple of months now since Lotte started to swim.
And she told us that it is much nicer than handball as "with handball I don't know where to throw the ball."...
A team sport is of course much more difficult compared to a sport where you listen and then perform. Especially when you don't get all the information due to having CI..
The trainers are great. After we explained them that not all information is understood straight away, that they have to make sure Lotte understands, they have used that information well. I was really pleased when I noticed a trainer actually managing to get the volume of all the kids down, so that even she could speak with a normal voice... Not an easy thing to do in a swimming pool with 10 kids in a group.. (And more groups in the next lane..)
So, she thrives. Loves to go. Is exhausted after her hour training. Two times a week...
And, great progress..
I hadn't been with her for a while (she wants to go alone... It's her way of owning this activity..) I was surprised to see how much progress she had made in the last month..
Here a video of Lotte after 1 hour of training.... Even though she was exhausted, she still wanted to show her swimming with this video..

She understands... or does she..??

Lotte is doing well. Most important, her teacher knows how to "see" Lotte. We're lucky to have her. Lots of progress. She's a little fighter..

Its difficult for outsiders to really "see" the child that has trouble hearing, because these children are masters in faking they understand the message. 

It's one of the things we have been focusing on a lot.. We tell her teachers, trainers.. "Do not think Lotte understands what you are saying. Not even when she says she does."'

We tell them to ask control questions....

Lotte does understand more and more but at the same time she's hiding some of the things she does not understand. When confronted with that, she will do a step back, smile and say "Oh yeh, I dont understand..". But not before..

It's understandable.. Lotte doesn't want to say every time she doesn't understand, and the teachers, friends, and at times us - parents - rather go on with the conversation than check if she did or did not understand.

Sometimes it doesn't harm to move on... sometimes it's important to verify that the message has gone through..

At the "Lotte-Parent-teacher" meeting the teacher told Lotte that if she doesn't understand, she needs to ask her. And if Lotte still doesn't understand, she should ask again.. It's up to her - Lotte's teacher - to make sure Lotte understands... 

Then I told Lotte that it is always OK to ask. In fact, not asking is the first mistake, and just writing down an answer without understanding the question is the second mistake..

Lotte hates making mistakes, so I hope this will be a motivating way of thinking....

Last week she had a math problem with a question like "What tracks does John have to run in order to run 6 km.?" which Lotte answered with "He has to train a lot.."

When we just point at he answer she is very quick to erase the answer... She realises it's wrong, or better said... she guessed wrong. Rather than thinking & asking when she does the exercise she just writes down the first that comes to mind.. 
Her reasoning is probably: If every question has an answer.. homework is finished...

At the end some tears due "trouble" with friends. Some frustration with friend teasing her.
She explained very well how she prefers to play 1 on 1. When there are more she see the other girls whispering and (often rightly probably) thinks its about her.
Then again.. with girls there's a lot of mental stuff going on... difficult for Lotte..
But she also shows wonderful compassion. How she includes other children when she sees someone is by him/her-self. And how she understands that you should not refuse children to play with you if they ask.. and that this is not valid just at school, but also outside school...

Again...
she's doing well... eager to learn, tell & ask in the classroom, eager to learn outside the classroom as well...

Finally a picture of Lotte in her element.. Watching/listening to movies on the iPad with her favorite friend...

BlimE Song.. - "Join Us"

Weeks of practicing for a dance with all other schools in Norway.
Finding the son.. practicing the dance.... excellent.

   

And in the end it came all together to the day the whole school performed it... All over Norway.
Great initiative..

Swimming with both CI's on...

It's not easy to get them right, but when they finally sit... they sit...
After not wanting any CI under the swimming cap (pre-summer) she agreed (after we forced her) that hearing what the trainers said was kind of handy. So.. 1 CI was accepted. Then she came up with the idea of 2 CI's.. Who are we to disagree with that...

Anyway... We found out that when we first localise where the spool needs to go above the cap, then put the spool there - under the cap, and then push the processors under the cap (on the ear is really awkward..) it works well..

So.. Bilateral Swimming....

  

   

 

Swimming with CI

Yesterday the third training for Lotte at the swim club.
She's still excited to go, and loved it. The club is training for racing... In time..
The previous times I went with her to see if she was comfortable (YES) and if there would be good communication between the trainers and Lotte.. And vice versa. Both times I didn't push Lotte to wear the CI under her swim-cap (hasn't been a success up to now). For me it was more important to get her settled.
This last time, last Wednesday, her mother joined us and Lotte was eager to show what she could do. I told Lotte that we would use the CI under her swim-cap and she agreed without problems.

It worked well. No problems like disconnecting for some reason... Lotte was hearing all the time.
to do the excercise where previously whe would wait to see what needed to be done.It was wonderful to see how she now talked to the trainers, where previously she wold be silent, watching eagerly to what the trainer did. How she joked with the other children, where previously she would not make contact. How she would actually go first to do the excercise where previously whe would wait to see what needed to be done.
In general, she became so much more involved... It was great to see.

Mentally, cognitively, she has grown.. In the last couple of months she has become more sulf-sufficient.. This is just another of the steps to doing things herself.. her way..
an see that Lotte notices the differences herself. How much easier it is to follow what needs to be done. How much more fun it is to hear what the other children are saying..I can see that Lotte notices the differences herself. How much easier it is to follow what needs to be done. How much more fun it is to hear what the other children are saying..

So... For next time, I will have the CI swim bags with me, but I am not sure if I am going to suggest it to Lotte... I might leave it up to her to ask me... And if she doesn't.... I'll tell her to wear it..

----------------
Update 25. Sept... She suddenly told me she wanted 2 CI on in the water...
Well... OK.. :-)

Celebrating..

Lotte celebrating her birthday today, with her friends... 

Think she's a happy bunny.. :-)

Video - Nucleus 6 - daily life.

Thanks Dan for the heads-up.
Great article in your blog..
Nucleus 6 CI Processor Uses GN ReSound Unite Hearing Aid wireless accessories

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....

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)

Lotte in English, Dutch and Norwegian...

During the evening meal, Lotte showed us her English skills....
Couldn't let that moment pass and taped it.. (btw.. how do you tape it with a mobile phone..)
As a proud dad.. wanting to show off her skills, I asked her to do it in Dutch & Norwegian as well..

It's great to see how she mentally has to switch to another language. Her English is new of course. Also the way the melody changes between Dutch and Norwegian is great.... She's got an ear for languages... just like her mother....

Milestones, Mountain-ranges and views

Milestones....
They happen all the time, and like I have said on the blog.. sometimes they fly by, and sometimes they stand up in your face... (well, I said something to that effect..)

Last Thursday was the yearly checkup for Lotte. A great day out since we (actually, this was the first time I couldn't be there..) have to fly to Oslo, then take a train & tram to the hospital where the center for the check-up is located. One of Lotte's teachers joined Lotte and her mum.

This time, for the first time, it was Lotte who was in charge. She has grown so much lately, that my wife had no problem just sitting back and let Lotte do all the talking. And the specialists were excellent at directing everything to Lotte.
It must have been a wonderful day for Lotte because she was 100% focused the hole time. While adjusting the settings on the CI/BTE's, when finding the noises that she doesn't like (flushing the toilet) and trying to do something with that, she got it, and gave excellent feedback.. While doing speech tests in noisy environments and while doing comprehension tests. she did great. Her teacher was very impressed with Lotte..
But it's a great day out. She loves to go there and thrives on the attention, but this time, at the same time she realises the importance of the day.

In all, this day marks a beginning of Lotte taking over the "CI business" from us. She can accurately give feedback about how and what she hears. She understands the tests they are doing. She understands that there are different programs on her BTE she can use, because she was mentally there when they made them.
Of course life goes back to normal for her as soon as she was back at school, and she won't be playing with the different proframs, but she knows they are there.
Also, with one of her teachers being there, there is someone at school that will recognise difficult situations and can tell Lotte to switch to another program.. or, she might identify that Lotte forgot to switch back to the default setting.

Anyway.. It's a huge milestone. It didn't fly by. We didn't bump into it. It was like the mountain range in the distance that we finally reached.. We knew it was there, and were cruising along towards it. Now, having reached it, we can enjoy the view forward, and back...
It's a great view...

(btw.. Lotes mom promised to post an account of the day as well.... so stay tuned..)

Ear-plugs for Lotte

Yep.... the first step toward carrying the BTE's on the ear instead of on the shoulders has been made.... Well, again a first step. The previous "step" ended in a broken BTE....

We planned to get a mold made for the plugs that are going to keep the BTE's in place,.... behind the ear that is...

Lotte's ears are not designed to have a BTE hanging there.... Some people have a little earlobe on the bottom which can be used to clamp on a BTE, but Lotte doesn't have that... The plug will do it for her.

We already prepared Lotte the week before. After that there was no way we were going to forget this appointment. Lotte was counting the days... Guess this is her way of having grip on the whole situation...
We would have done it last time in Oslo, but there was not enough time.. planes to catch ... So, we would do it at home...

Today was the day. I picked Lotte up from school went to the hospital..
After a good ear-cleaning.. (after all... it hasn't been used at all during the last 8 years. Was in pretty clean state.. :-) ) we went to the "making ear-molds" specialist...
Blue paste + White paste + rolling it between the hands, and then.... "injected in the ear followed by a 3 minute wait..... Lotte was fine with it all.... and demanded some pictures..

We'll see how it will go. I have the feeling that the novelty is driving Lotte at the moment. The real test will be her going to school with the BTE's on the ear.

It would be an improvement for her in the sense that she will have more control over the BTE.

At the moment she can remove the BTE from the pouches on the shoulder and change the settings but she can't put it back in the pouch. With the earpiece she will be able to just take it off from the ear and put it back again..

Now, it's waiting for the mail to arrive with the 2 plugs. Then we have to assemble the BTE to the plug, but should not be a problem..
We will keep you informed..
----------------------------
Usefull links: Sports and CI - Earpiece Guide - Molds
(Thanks Dan..)