Hopefully someone here can answer this...

My niece is going with me to my next ENT and audiologist exam to watch how its done and to see how they do the impressions for the ear molds. She is excited to get to see what happens and then when she goes to her audiologist, she wants me to come help her pick out her ha. She wants "pretty ones" like mine. I told her there are several colors to pick from depending on which brand they decide is best for her.
 
mizerey said:
My niece is going with me to my next ENT and audiologist exam to watch how its done and to see how they do the impressions for the ear molds. She is excited to get to see what happens and then when she goes to her audiologist, she wants me to come help her pick out her ha. She wants "pretty ones" like mine. I told her there are several colors to pick from depending on which brand they decide is best for her.
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That is wonderful that you can take on that role of modeling for her. The two of you will no doubt have an extremely close relationship as she grows. Just keep doing what you are doing.
 
jillio said:
No, LDNanna told the OP exactly the right thing. What you are doing is liable to cause more problems for the child than she already has. Just because your sister had a situation that you have interpreted, whether correctly or not, as being a "doctor's fault" doesn't mean that it has anything to do with this situation.
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I still think is always best to get a second opinion when you're in doubt.
 
I enjoy being with her. I have always been extremely close with her and her brother. They live about an hour away from me but the travel time is worth it to see them so happy. They play the best with my son too. We are all learning ASL right now. I start formal classes in March. Her school has paired her up with an older deaf girl who has a terp. They have also turned on their sound field in all her classrooms to help as best they can right now. They did tell my sister that they are trying to see if they can also have her come out to the local deaf school (about 2 minutes from my house) for pull out ASL classes and socialization. I offered to have her and her brother come out for ASL classes on the weekends.
 
mizerey said:
I enjoy being with her. I have always been extremely close with her and her brother. They live about an hour away from me but the travel time is worth it to see them so happy. They play the best with my son too. We are all learning ASL right now. I start formal classes in March. Her school has paired her up with an older deaf girl who has a terp. They have also turned on their sound field in all her classrooms to help as best they can right now. They did tell my sister that they are trying to see if they can also have her come out to the local deaf school (about 2 minutes from my house) for pull out ASL classes and socialization. I offered to have her and her brother come out for ASL classes on the weekends.
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That is great!! My family all learned ASL at the same time my son and I did. It made it so much more enjoyable.
 
They live about an hour away from me but the travel time is worth it to see them so happy. They play the best with my son too. We are all learning ASL right now. I start formal classes in March. Her school has paired her up with an older deaf girl who has a terp. They have also turned on their sound field in all her classrooms to help as best they can right now. They did tell my sister that they are trying to see if they can also have her come out to the local deaf school (about 2 minutes from my house) for pull out ASL classes and socialization.
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YEAH!!!!!! That is AWESOME!!!!!! I was going to say that maybe it might be a good idea to see about educational accomondations.....But it sounds like her mainstream school is doing a decent job!!! Nice to see something like that for once!
What else? Notetakers are a good idea (hard to speechread and write at the same time)
Suggest to your sister, that it might be a good idea to try to find out what middle and high school is like for kids with disablities in her current district, just to be prepared in case it might be rough. Your niece could also go to a Deaf camp or summer program at Deaf School: Summer camp for the deaf, hard of hearing and cochlear implant children. » Camp Mark 7, (one in NY State)
 
Middle and high school are all in one building (they live in a rural area). They will do the same. They said they will be getting her a note taker in the next year or so. She's in 1st grade and doesn't have strong reading skills yet. They are going to start writing her IEP as soon as they find out her audi results. I will look into the camp! Thanks for that!
 
They will do the same. They said they will be getting her a note taker in the next year or so. She's in 1st grade and doesn't have strong reading skills yet. They are going to start writing her IEP as soon as they find out her audi results.
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Oh yeah....just first grade...little too soon to worry about middle and high school.Lots of kids do well in the mainstream for first and early grades. And I mean she does sound like either she's postlingal or may have slipped through the hearing testing cracks. One thing you might want to suggest to your sister, is for her to contact RSD and have them a) perform the educational evaluations...you know the testing they do for the IEPs? and b) Have RSD send an educational advocate to the IEP meetings, so they can help with figuring out decent accomondations.
 
Your niece is lucky to have a wonderful aunt like you!
 
You know, I never thought of calling RSD about that. I will let her know. My niece had very awkward speech when she was young but seemed to pass the hearing tests. Up until she was about 4 I love you was i ya oo with her. She still slurs her words a bit and sometimes has an awkward tone. I have to ask her to slow down and clarify what she's trying to say at times. My four year old niece (I have 2 nieces and 5 nephews) is worse...most of us cannot understand her at all. I'm waiting for my brother to get her hearing tested. The 4 year old is in speech therapy but I haven't seen much improvement.
Thank you Shel!
 
Is it possible to try a course of medication, such as Zyrtec, to try to dry up your neice's fluid in the ears? One of my kids had fluid in the ears and our ENT had us do this before progressing on to tubes. It worked, and he never needed the tubes.

I do defenitely think the fluid issue has to be resolved before you can get an accurate hearing assessment. In my child's case, after the fluid issue was resolved, we got a hearing assessment and it was normal. The fluid in his ears had caused a 'muffling' affect and delayed his language (he was 3).
 
mizerey said:
You know, I never thought of calling RSD about that. I will let her know. My niece had very awkward speech when she was young but seemed to pass the hearing tests. Up until she was about 4 I love you was i ya oo with her. She still slurs her words a bit and sometimes has an awkward tone. I have to ask her to slow down and clarify what she's trying to say at times. My four year old niece (I have 2 nieces and 5 nephews) is worse...most of us cannot understand her at all. I'm waiting for my brother to get her hearing tested. The 4 year old is in speech therapy but I haven't seen much improvement.
Thank you Shel!
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I went through something like this with my daughter. Her issues stemmed from poor muscle function with her oral facial muscles. She could not do the hard G sounds, CK sounds, L's or any hard consonants in the middle of the word like daddy was da-ee. She could not say Grandma, so my mother was mom-om. When the therapists worked with her, she had all kinds of exercises to strengthen the muscles and then we found with her hearing tests, that she could hear all sounds, but her speech recognition was so bad it couldn't be charted. When we asked her about it, she said all speech and sounds were "fuzzy". She is 16 now, and still, we have to tell her to slow down and think before speaking. She will still slur her words and says that sounds are still unclear. She did wear hearing aids for a while, but they only increased the "fuzzy" sound and she hated that. She prefers the captioning on TV so that she can get the right words (70% of the time when the captioning is good). She also has other learning disabilities as well. Some of the exercises involved holding a large sucker, like a charms blow-pop or a tootsie pop in her mouth behind the lips without her teeth. We would lightly tug and have her hold it still without her teeth. We went through all kinds of drills where she had to says words with her hand on her throat so she could verify that she got those sounds that come from the back of the throat, like the hard G and the CK. Her first full sentence at 2 was "Loo ma, the hows are eaing rass." We were on the road in the Florida Panhandle and it was "Look ma, the cows are eating grass!". She was looking at a cow pasture out the side window.
 
I try Oliver! We are a very close knit family. I had no one to look up to when I was young and I think its what she needs!
 
mizerey said:
I try Oliver! We are a very close knit family. I had no one to look up to when I was young and I think its what she needs!
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Absolutely. All children need someone they can relate to as being like them. Mentors are so very important. Especially since so many deaf kids never see a deaf adult until they are adults. I had a woman tell me once that she thought she would be hearing when she grew up because all the adults she had ever seen were hearing. I find that really sad.
 
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