I tried to upload her audiogram but it is a .pdf file and it is saying I can't do that through Blogspot. I have to do more research. I am certain there must be a way....but don't know at this time.
So, to do this with out visual aid will be event more challenging.
With her hearing aids, Mikaela responds to sound in the 35-40 decibel loss at 500 Hz. Then at 1000 she is at 40-45 decibel loss. It drops off steeply at 2000 Hz to 75-80 decibel loss. The audiogram doesn't show any response at the higher freqencies i.e. 4000 or 8000.
To attempt to share which sounds in the English language she may be hearing based on this test, they are as follows:
j, m, d, b, l, a, n, o, ng, r, e, i, u
The sounds she most likely is not hearing:
p, h, g, k, ch, sh, f, s, th
For example, her name, Mikaela, to her probably sounds like Mi-ay-la. No legible 'k'. Thus why deaf people miss sounds and parts of words when they speak. They don't hear them. How can you repeat what you didn't hear? (This is not taking into account years of torturous speech therapy.)
2 comments:
This is very much like my son's aided audiogram used to be. We used simultaneous sign and spoken language with him. He ended up picking up the vowels of spoken English, but not the consonants (almost none.) He eventually got a cochlear implant and really took off with it. Amazing how much better his aided hearing was with the implant -- around 15-20 dB across the frequency range. Now he can hear all the consonants clearly and at long range.
Speech therapy doesn't have to be torturous! Check out www.cochlearimplantonline.com and read about Auditory-Verbal Therapy. It's a parent-led model of language acquisition for deaf children that focuses on teaching through play and using everyday interactions to teach speech and language in the most natural way possible. Learning to listen and talk can be fun!
This is a great blog, and I hope you'll consider adding it to the aggregator at Deaf Village (www.deafvillage.com). We'd love to have you as part of our community. You'll meet tons of other parents who have been there/done that, and they'll be happy to help you as you begin to navigate your adorable daughter's hearing journey!
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