Ben's journey into a hearing world.: Louder

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Louder

Yesterday we went back up to visit Dr. Don and have Ben's ear turned up. Ben was given four more programs, each a bit louder than the first.

Next, we went into the hearing booth to see how well Ben is responding to sounds. With Ben on his first program (the quietest) he responded consistently at 20 db!!!!

Take a look at the audiogram. Ben can hear everything above the 20 db line- most speech sounds, even a clock ticking. Not bad considering a month ago he hadn't responded at 90 db!

Ben celebrated his new hearing by spending the day pressing buttons on the phone. He has always loved to carry the phone around, but today he found the beeps quite humorous.

3 comments:

Lissa said...: Wow Ben!! Keep it up!!; February 7, 2010 at 2:16 PM
tammy said...: 20 DB! That's amazing! Way to listen Ben!; February 9, 2010 at 7:08 AM
Anonymous said...: To think that you're JUST at the beginning of watching Ben's auditory development -- isn't it incredible! We are SO happy for Ben -- his success as he applies meaning to sound -- and the gift of hearing! He's hearing everybody now -- and will be developing auditory recognition for so MANY family member voices! Enjoy every minute of this journey and THANK YOU for sharing on this blog! us Zegar's; February 9, 2010 at 1:23 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.