Re: More Questions from Mom's scared..........

[Guest guest]

Hi Pam,

Children can be mapped with the Nucleus using Neural Response Telemetry.

I am no expert on how it works but it has to do with sending a signal to the

nerve to measure it's response. I was once part of a training session for

audiologists where they used NRT on me for practice. I brought my current map

with me and the map that the audie came up with based on the NRT results was

very close to the map that I had based on my responses in the audie's office.

The map isn't necessarily unbearable as the audie would be careful to provide

levels of sound that were comfortable for the child.

I would also imagine that a skilled audie for children would understand a

huge amount of behavioral response as well as asking questions about the

child's linguistic development? That is only a guess on my part. Is there an

audie in the house??

[Guest guest]

Hi Pam,

I would like to recommend to you one more list, CICircle, which is for

parents of kids implanted with CI.

It has been a great source of information and support for me in the process

of getting CI for my daughter, who was hooked up January 16.

As for hookup, there's no need to worry about that. They start with low

levels of stimulation (sound) and let the child's brain adapt to what is

heard. Then gradually

the levels of sound are increased to achieve the desired levels of hearing.

Yes, they do need input from the child, but that is obtained not in the form

of discussion, but through a series of tests, which show what the child can

hear and whether the perception of sounds reflects that of a normal hearing

person. The tests are not painful at all and usually based on ...listening,

so they may be tedious and tiring sometimes at most. They also have other

tools for measuring the CI results, like NRT, which are helpful and

effective, from what I have heard from out audi.

I've heard sometimes at hookup kids complain of the sound being too loud

(little kids sometimes react with crying), but then the audi just turns the

CI down a bit, to find the proper comfort level. My daughter's reaction was

pure curiosity. She didn't cry nor complain and liked it from day 1.

To join the CI CIRCLE, send an e-mail to:

majordomo@...

subject should be blank

(USE PLAIN TEXT-not HTML)

body of e-mail should read:

subscribe cicircle

Take care

Ewa

More Questions from Mom's scared..........

Hi all,

First a thank you to all who answered my first post...

I have spent HOURS reading the past posts (started at the begining,

over a year ago) and I have some questions about mapping. For those

of you that have children with implants can you tell me how they did

at hook up. From what I read it sounds as though the " noise " is very

confusing and maybe unbareable. Also it sounds like imput is needed

to adjust the mappings... what if the child can't explain or does

understand the difference? How is the mapping done without imput

from the child?

Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions... I know

I'll have more as I struggle to decide what to do for my daughter.

Pam

[Guest guest]

I can tell you only a little bit since we are just going through the mapping

process right now for Annika. She is 2 years old and received a bilateral

implant on 3/1/04. She had hookup yesterday. So I can tell you a little bit of

what happened yesterday. We went into the sound room and they had two computers

running(her audiologist using one and a rep from AB doing the other) with one

processor hooked up to each computer. They first ran some testing and then one

at a time did the NRI(???) which is really where they checked each electrode

individually to see how much " power " it took to make each electrode to stimulate

the hearing nerve. All the testing looked a lot like the ABR report. So they

are really testing what her brain is responding to the electrodes not her. And

from all of that information they created her program that she is currently

using. This first time she only came home with one program and we are just

supposed to increase the volume as the day goes by little by little. So far I

have been able to move her up " one step " . Once they had the program then we

hooked her back up to the headpieces and at the same time the separate sides

were increasing in volume. Annika really didn't respond a whole lot except

there were moments that we could tell that she was hearing things. But they hit

a level where Annika pulled the headpieces off and started to scream. They back

off on this and we know that this was too much for at this time. It is my job

to try to get her up to that level by the time that she goes back on Tuesday.

Anyway this is a long response just to say that they use the computer to test

how her brain is responding and that is why they don't need the child to really

respond at first. Eventually I am told that she will be required to give more

information very similar to what she needed to do when she was tested with her

hearing aids. Right now I can say that she has really been hooked up for just

24 hours and we are seeing some awesome results that are just too numerous to

say at this time. She is actually crying when we have to take the parts off for

her to go to sleep so she has fell in love with her hearing all over again.

mom

Marcus 13

11

Jon 10

Annika

bilateral Clarion implant 3/1/04

hookup 3/25/04

More Questions from Mom's scared..........

Hi all,

First a thank you to all who answered my first post...

I have spent HOURS reading the past posts (started at the begining,

over a year ago) and I have some questions about mapping. For those

of you that have children with implants can you tell me how they did

at hook up. From what I read it sounds as though the " noise " is very

confusing and maybe unbareable. Also it sounds like imput is needed

to adjust the mappings... what if the child can't explain or does

understand the difference? How is the mapping done without imput

from the child?

Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions... I know

I'll have more as I struggle to decide what to do for my daughter.

Pam