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....

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..)

Where to start..

Lotte has made a jump again... indicated by erratic behaviour, being tired like other times she grew mentally again.
Suddenly she is taking more control of her life. It's wonderful to see.
Her vocabulary is still improving. It's noticeable that with her growing mental capacities she get's jokes quicker. She is anticipating in the conversation.. making small, to the point remarks and replying in ways that were not there 3 months ago..Smart comebacks etc... Wonderful..

Socially she's busy with friends that she invites and/or visits. With any other child that would like to go to a friend and asks to call her friend, we would reply that she can just go there...
With Lotte we are happy for her to use the phone. She loves to use it, and has no problems with it.
Appointments are made to meet at different places, invitations are sent, and when she's out, she has her mobile phone with her to call us to ask when she needs to be home... She uses it well..

At school she is keeping up, despite the time she spends playing outside. It's a small dilemma... Homework or social activities... The social part often wins...
But she likes to do homework... probably because of the respect she has for the teacher... The teachers will is law..!.
She seems to have the brain for languages. Like her mother...
A week ago we had a long conversation in English. She now has enough vocabulary to make short sentences and loves to show her capabilities.
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...(Update here..)

Otherwise.. Lotte uses different languages for different activities as we discovered lately..
A good example is when she comes from school. When asked about her day (in Dutch) she will be brief. To the point. When our (Norwegian) neighbour asks, she starts chatting away and keeps on talking... Many stories..Obviously, school experiences need to be discussed in Norwegian...
Stories about the vacation in Holland will be in Dutch... Exciting to watch these kind of developments...

Time for X-mas with her grandmother from Holland staying with us.
Seeing her chat away with her is looking at the everyday wonder that CI provides.. Magic.

"Baby Baby"

While sitting at the kitchen table downstairs, we heard Lotte singing upstairs.. out loud.. "Baby Baby"...
Fresh out of the shower, putting her clothes on, she was singing out loud..
We went upstairs in order to catch our diva on video.... just in time.
She just put on her T-shirt (with the CI's on the shoulders) and entered the hearing world...



Btw.. She speaks Norwegian at the beginning "Det regner kjøttboller", sings "Baby Baby" and when out of view says in Dutch to me "Zo, ik ben klaar met douchen" ("There, I've finished showering.")

Enjoy....

F*ck you..???

As some might know we are Dutch, living in Norway, so Lotte speaks Dutch and Norwegian..

At school, second grade (age 7) they get English as well...

So... suddenly we hear Lotte say something like "f*ck you".. in herself, not to anyone...
So, her mom told her not to say that.. to no effect......

Suddenly we realised that she was singing, having difficulty pronouncing the lyrics..... Can you guess...


Queen..."We will, we will,.... rock you..!!"

Happy New Year !!

During the X-mas time, grandmother was visiting us. Always great... Like she's coming home.. Also for her.. :-) It's a wonderful opportunity for Lotte to play even more games, talk more and read aloud to whoever wants to listen... and during these times, that's grandma.

But these relaxing times around christmas (e.g. breakfast here at about 10:00) make it easy for all of us to interact more.. A lot of time spent at breakfast, and dinner which is great for Lotte to listen, speak and be corrected when needed.
Because, in a way, all communication is therapy. Asking for things at the table will teach her to wait for her turn when she wants something, to pronounce it correctly. To say "please" and "thank you" etc. And - even more important, to listen to others... That when a question starts with "Lotte" that she starts focusing immediately...
And the longer the meal... the longer the "therapy"..






Grandma is a great help, and it's wonderful to have her with us. She even started to learn Norwegian (She is Dutch, like the rest of us..) because she doesn't want to miss out when her grandchildren and we speak Norwegian with our friends.
So, here Lotte is reading a Norwegian book to her. And explaining what it means....

So wonderful.. and one almost forgets that here's a deaf child teaching her grandmother another language..

WOW.!!

In Norwegian this time...

I know... no posts for a while, and then all these video's in foreign languages..

Well, these video's show Lotte explaining some Christmas ideas... Santaclaus, presents, the tree.... Explaining in a way that is showing a different phase in her development.
If you can handle some Norwegian, just click the pictures to start the video.. (In YouTube... Make sure you come back here.. LOL )

  

A friend of us is attending a conference in Trondheim and met some British experts on CI. But, they have no experience bit bi-lingual children... So, she asked if she could inform them about Lotte's blog....

OF COURSE...!! THAT's WHY WE ARE DOING ALL THIS WRITING.... :-)
The more the merrier...

Just some brainstorming....

Social or academic... ? .. Where to put the focus...???
Lotte needs a lot of support in order to keep up with school-work. Reading is going well, and improves with the amount of time we spend on it. Math, adding and substracting so far, requires help as well. Fortunately, she loves doing homework. She loves reading and she's OK with being corrected - gramatically. (That said.. the sentence "I know that.!" is used often by her.. :-) )
BUT.... she loves to get the bike and just go back to school... interact with the other children that are still there. Cycling from one place to another... Being with others....
How to combine this.??
An advantage is that.. this is Norway. We have no problem with her cycling off. She has a watch, and even though she can't tell time, she understands how the dials have to be for her to be home. She's very punctual...
A disadvantage is that.. this is Norway. Days are getting shorter quickly, and cycling in the dark is a No-No for Lotte. Also dusk is too dangerous.... so this leaves little time between getting home from school, and being back inside.

So... there's the dilemma. She needs exposure to both social interaction and the academic... The social part is obvious when friends come home with her. To her it's great, because she can interact 1 on 1. Put another 7-year old in the equation, and Lotte will not be able to keep up.
A couple of days ago this happened when she had a friend over, and the two played along fine. When a third child came at the scene the interaction, or attention is not distributely equally. Lotte will fall behind in the conversation and games, and will get frustrated about that. Lotte came to us and informed us that the latter had to go. She wanted the friend to herself.
For us it's interesting to watch the difference between a 7-year old that has heard all her life, and Lotte, who has been deaf for the first 2 years.
We can see that there is still a lot to catch up.
Lotte is doing really well, but she is only slowly catching up on the 2 years lost. It seems as if she caught up 1 year since she got CI, meaning that she's mentally a year behind the rest of the class..
Realising that can hurt.... or you can look at the other side... CI helped her to catch up.
Because, when she had had signlanguage from the start and because of that had not had a delay in cognitive development, she would still not be able to interact with all the children she's interacting with right now. She would have had just a couple of other friends that would speak sign. And they would only see each other during schooltime, and sporadic visits.
Now, CI has made her in a very social girl, attending the school as her brother and sister - close to home, outgoing, determined to say what she wants to say. Sure.... she could be that deaf/Deaf as well, but not in the hearing world.
She would not have been able to communicate with her grandparents. Even thought they could have learned sign, they would have been surpassed by Lotte in no time. Now, she talks to them on the phone when in Norway, directly when in Holland.
In a way we cannot imagine how Lotte's, and for that matter, ours, and our other childrens life would have looked like had Lotte not been able to hear...
It would have been completely different. Can't say if it would have been better, or worse... but very different.

Btw... she's allowed to cycle to school for 1/2 an hour.. then homework.. :-)

English lessons!

School started for Lotte with English homework already from the second week.
Kids with cochlear implants tend to have problems with their working memory, due to a lack of language interactions at an early age. That means that new words usually do not linger after hearing it once. It has to be repeated many times. I actually compare it with a computer hard disc that is not yet formatted.

Well, formatting for Lotte has begun. Can't remember how many times we now have counted from 1 to 10 in English, but she thinks it's great fun, she understands what it means (probably because of her own understanding of two languages, that the same thing can have different names). Saying "three" is probably difficult for all children, but the lack of two front teeth really doesn't help! Otherwise she seems to pick it up, and remembers more quickly now (after a week) what the numbers are called.

Until now she thinks it is a great game, so we hope it will continue that way :-)

--- Mous ---

And to all readers out there.... just be patient.... Lotte will one day start writing to you all...
How cool would that be !!
--- Cloggy ---

One for the record....

Lotte explaining golf to her mom...
I know.... in a way nothing special about this.. a 6-year old telling mommy how to play golf.
......... and that's exactly what makes it special!

Writing

As mentionned before, Lotte loves to write as well.

She starts to get the idea of combining letters and create words. "Lotte", "mamma" and pappa" are favorites.

Early january, her sister helped her make a note to us (parents).

Her sister wrote "Hip Hura".. Lotte the rest...
I'm sure that seeing her brother and sister doing their homework, writing all the time, inspires her. She WANTS to do this...
I've said it before.... having a brother and sister is such a huge bonus!!

Implantation of Prelingually Deaf Patients ...

Hard-of-hearing or Language-deprived ?

A thought that crossed my mind - actually, it didn't cross, it got caught, is that the way we look at children with CI might be wrong. Wrong in the sense of what kind of support we give compared to the support they need.

Historically, CI's were the next step from HA's. And with that, CI's are many times still regarded as such. A hearing aid. Working in a different way, but still, an aid to hear.
People with CI are therefore still regarded as Hard-of-hearing since "obviously" they use an aid to hear.

This might very well be true in many cases, but a new generation CI-users is emerging. Children that are implanted (often on two sides) before the age of three that do not conciously grow up deaf. CI is giving them sound that enables them to speak and understand language.
The "problem" these children have is not lack of hearing. They hear very soft sounds, they understand and reply with whisper. In that sence they are not hearing impaired. (Keep in mind... I have Lotte in mind. I know results can be different.)

They ARE however behind in language and therefore cognitive thinking. The older the child, (1, 2, 3 years old) the more this is true. This is where the supportsystem should focus! On gaining on the lost language. Because language defines us.

Obviously, the situation depends from child to child. 1 CI will make undrestanding in noisy environment much more difficult, and with that, there is a hearing impairement. But think of children that do well with bi-lateral CI. These children need language, speech and above all, comprehension.

Example,
Lotte is now in an all-hearing kindergarten, and with the language she has, she is behind compared to other 4-year olds. (We are not worried about that. She only has two years of sound, so obviously she's behind - and catching up nicely...) She is not able to master communication with children that otherwise would be her "equal" because the others do not understand her. The result is that she will look for other children that either ar younger but at her speech level, or children that are more fysical that communicative. (e.g. boys, playing outside... where screaming and actions goes a long way.)
Focus should be on making sure Lotte is understand. (And this is being done in her kindergarden..)

It seems that for the children, focus is actually on communication and speech.
But what about the parents...
In Norway, the parents are offered sign-laguage classes free of charge. BUT, the focus is only on that. Sign. WE, Lotte's parents, do not have a need for that. Lotte does not use it any more. We need information in speech and language development. How does it work. What are the milestones... What to look for, how to play, what to do, what NOT to do.
BUT since children with CI are still looked at through "DEAF" glasses instead of "Language deprived" glasses, that support is not available. Only "DEAF" therefore "Sign" support...

How is that elsewhere..??
Is the support sysem different.
Like, AV-therapy. It's not available here in Norway, but I have a feeling that there the focus is on educating the parent.... Correction, it's not available where we live..
Anyway... have to do some more research on it.

---SON---SOL---SUN---ZON---

This happened today, when we came home around 17:00, and got the mail from the mailbox.
The mailbox was wet, and this turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to write with her finger, so Lotte started: "L-O-T-T-E”. While she wrote her name she pronounced the letters as out loud: "L-O-T-T-E”.

Then..... came the dutch variant of the word SUN, she wrote "SON" (should be ZON). This was a true breakthrough, and had I not have the knowledge that I have gained in the last months, I would not have perceived how big a breaktrhough this was.

Increadable... think this deaf girl that at the age of 4 after only two years with sound manages to break the reading code.....

----SON----SOL----SUN----ZON----

Det som skjedde i dag, var at når vi kom hjem i 17-tiden, gikk vi for å hente posten i postkassen. Postkassen var våt, og den viste seg å være et ypperlig middel å skrive på med fingeren, og Lotte satt i gang: ”L-O-T-T-E”. Mens hun skrev navnet sitt sa hun lydene til bokstavene høyt: L-O-T-T-E.

Så....... kom det en nederlandsk variant av ordet SOL, hun skrev ”SON” (skal være ZON). Dette var et sannelig gjennombrudd, og hadde jeg ikke hatt den kunnskapen jeg har fått inne de siste månedene, hadde jeg ikke skjønt på samme måten hvor stor denne begivenheten egentlig var!!!

Helt utrolig.... tenk den døve jenta som ved 4-årsalderen og etter bare to år med lyd holder på å knekke lesekoden....

Quotes regarding language

I enjoy quotes. They give quick insight in certain subjects. Lotte's mother is currently studying Special Education (Not sure if that is the corect translation for "Spesial Pedagogik" - will correct it later..) and with the papers she has to write, quotes actually give good starting points.

Here are a couple we found... Of great interest are the ones from long LONG time ago. The filosphers of the old days - gnostics - regarded language and debate very important.....


Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language.

Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

As was his language so was his life.

Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951)

Article: Implantation of Prelingually Deaf Patients...

Most impressive graph is this one:

Article about early implantation and bilateral CI.

Found an interesting article...