Ben's journey into a hearing world.: Happy Bear

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy Bear

Ben's Aunt Joy went on a mission to find a toy a deaf baby would enjoy. She hit the jackpot with the "Happy Bear". The flashing lights on it's tummy keep Ben starring for minutes (hours in baby time!).

Well, come to find out, Ben can enjoy the songs of the "Happy Bear" also. Last night we put the speaker of the bear next to Ben's left ear (the better ear). I think he hears it! What do you think?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: Loved seeing Ben and his Happy Bear. We agree, we think he's hearing it! Gretchen and Sterling; March 17, 2009 at 8:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Dear Ben. We love seeing you so excited about hearing your new bear. You obviously are enjoying the music. Love, Grandma and Grandpa Harris; March 17, 2009 at 9:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Happy St. Patty's Day Ben, I am so happy you can hear Happy Bear. He loves you and so do I. Aunt Joy; March 18, 2009 at 8:46 AM
Anonymous said...: The 3 of us are quite impressed! He is so cute!

Katie Leland and Aaron; March 20, 2009 at 8:45 PM
Anonymous said...: We all absolutely believe he heard the bear! Wait until he gets those hearing aids!!

the Zegar family; March 29, 2009 at 1:20 PM

Ben's Words

eh ti - empty (7-10)
knee (7-10)
bu pu - buckle (7-10)
ba cu - vacuum (7-10)
mama ah du - mamas all done (7-10)
Auntie (7-10)
tees - peas (7-10)
me - meat (7-10)
mo eese - more please (7-10)
die die - diaper (7-10)
book (7-10)
mo - remote (7-10)
bebe - baby (7-10)
bown - down (7-10)
pop picle - popsicle (7-10)
appa pa - applesauce (7-10)
eat (7-10)
nak - snack (7-10)
teet - treat (7-10)
Otis - Otis (7-10)
ow wow - owie (7-10)
da - bath (6-10)
dan dan dan - banana (6-10)
ah puh - open (6-10)
ah tide - outside (6-10)
ah dun -all done (6-10)
apu - apple (5-10)
apu oos - apple juice (5-10)
ni ni - night night (5-10)
hup - hop, for bunny (4-10)
nea - neigh (4-10)
da di - doggy (3-10)
Ga Ka - Grandpa (3-10)
hi (3-10)
hep - help (3-10)
kak kak - for quack (3-10)
moaw - for meow (3-10)
bye bye (2-10)
uh - up (2-10)
uh oh (2-10)
mmm - tastes good (2-10)
mmmm -for moo (2-10)
dada (11-09)

“I'll try to make a visual picture that relates to the way sound is heard by a child with a cochlear implant. Suppose that you have to identify a four-legged animal, and you’ve not seen that animal before, but you have to figure out what it is. Maybe you have to draw it. Maybe you have to learn the name for it. Now, that animal is standing behind a bunch of trees. To see that animal, you have to look through tree trunks that are hiding big parts of that animal. Now, if you were looking through those trees with the equivalent of a hearing aid, you could probably only see the tail end of that animal, because you could only hear the low frequencies with that hearing aid. With a cochlear implant, though, you could see pieces of that animal’s head, pieces of its neck, its legs, its body, and pieces of its tail end, but you still would be missing pieces in between each of those that you could see. The reason I’m bringing this up for you to think about is because it’s important for us to realize that children who are using cochlear implants still don’t see the whole animal. They see more of a range of that animal, but they have to use their brains. They have to use what they already know about the world. They have to use their cognitive abilities to fill in those gaps to be able to put together a picture of that whole animal. That’s the kind of task that a child is facing using a cochlear implant.”
Dr. Patricia Spencer. Considerations for the Future: Putting It All Together, Presented at Cochlear Implants and Sign Language conference, April, 2002.