Guest guest Posted April 4, 2004 Report Share Posted April 4, 2004 Welcome to the group , you are in the right place! I've been through a similar situation. My daughter is 12 and has a mod-severe loss and like your Nate, she got her hearing aids at age 4. She had a lot of ground to make up, and went to kindergarten twice. The first time without extra classroom amplification, the second time with a soundfield system. It was like night and day. The first time through, she didn't even learn the names of the letters let alone what sound each one made, though the rest of the class did. Her teacher said " she's just not ready yet " but I knew it was because she couldn't hear well enough. Sure enough, the next year in kindergarten, she could hear better because of the soundfield, and she still had trouble with phonics. She couldn't hear the differences in the sounds of the letters, specifically the voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs. We worked on that at home, and taught the teacher the " acoustic highlighting " techniques for this that we learned from our AV therapist and within a week or two she was one of the best readers in the class. Had we not gotten this info and this specific help, her life at school would have been very different. So it is important to figure out where in the reading process he breaks down. I read a book a while ago called " The Words they need " by someone. I think you can get it through AG Bell. It is about literacy and language primarily for HOH kids. The author was a teacher of the HOH who found that the Orton Gillingham methods worked well in teaching her HOH kids to read. This is a multisensory method used with LD kids but she found it worked wonders for HOH kids. There are many reading programs that use Orton Gillingham methods, including mood Bell and . When president Bush talks about research based reading programs in " no child left behind " law, he is talking about these programs. However, schools are often loathe to provide these methodologies. Why they don't is a long story, but you can find these folks and pay yourself or work on getting your school system to pay. One thing we did very early in our journey was to get an independent evaluation. In our case we went to an oral school because our child was oral and knew no sign. Our school system's evaluation wasn't worth doo doo. But the best thing we ever did was get the folks who knew kids who couldn't hear to look at our child and help us understand what her issues were and what we would need to fight for. I can't tell you how invaluable this was. But because HOH is such a low incidence thing, you really need expert help. And outside the school system is usually where you find this. Another thing to look into is how well he is hearing in the classroom. Because not hearing well can cause isolation, lack of learning and a really bad attitude! We went through this in third grade. Maggie's teachers had always used the soundfield all day everyday, and even turned off the AC when teaching, and made sure she sat close to a speaker (we had 3 in the room). Then in third grade, the teacher decided she could hear when she wanted to hear and only used the soundfield for a few hours per week! And Maggie's attitude and behavior became awful, and we were getting notes home almost daily about what a poorly behaved child we had. We were mystified because this was new to us, and then we remembered the last time her behavior was so horrid, and that was before she got her hearing aids. So I went to talk to the teacher and that's when I learned she was using the soundfield so sparingly. We went round and round and I finally told her that what we were seeing was totally different than our experience over the past 3 years in the school and that the only difference I could see was that she wasn't using the soundfield. I asked her to try it our way for a week, and after a day and a half she called and admitted that we were right and she was seeing a totally different child. There is an article that I always give Maggie's teachers and you can find it on the web. It deals with minimal hearing loss, but I tell the teachers that her loss is about 5 categories worse than minimal and the issues are the same only bigger. You can find it here: http://www.totalhearing.net/child_faq_management.htm We're glad you found us. A lot of us have been in the same spot and you will get lots of varied advice. Use what works for your son and your family. And feel free to ask lots of questions. in GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 4, 2004 Report Share Posted April 4, 2004 Welcome to the group , you are in the right place! I've been through a similar situation. My daughter is 12 and has a mod-severe loss and like your Nate, she got her hearing aids at age 4. She had a lot of ground to make up, and went to kindergarten twice. The first time without extra classroom amplification, the second time with a soundfield system. It was like night and day. The first time through, she didn't even learn the names of the letters let alone what sound each one made, though the rest of the class did. Her teacher said " she's just not ready yet " but I knew it was because she couldn't hear well enough. Sure enough, the next year in kindergarten, she could hear better because of the soundfield, and she still had trouble with phonics. She couldn't hear the differences in the sounds of the letters, specifically the voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs. We worked on that at home, and taught the teacher the " acoustic highlighting " techniques for this that we learned from our AV therapist and within a week or two she was one of the best readers in the class. Had we not gotten this info and this specific help, her life at school would have been very different. So it is important to figure out where in the reading process he breaks down. I read a book a while ago called " The Words they need " by someone. I think you can get it through AG Bell. It is about literacy and language primarily for HOH kids. The author was a teacher of the HOH who found that the Orton Gillingham methods worked well in teaching her HOH kids to read. This is a multisensory method used with LD kids but she found it worked wonders for HOH kids. There are many reading programs that use Orton Gillingham methods, including mood Bell and . When president Bush talks about research based reading programs in " no child left behind " law, he is talking about these programs. However, schools are often loathe to provide these methodologies. Why they don't is a long story, but you can find these folks and pay yourself or work on getting your school system to pay. One thing we did very early in our journey was to get an independent evaluation. In our case we went to an oral school because our child was oral and knew no sign. Our school system's evaluation wasn't worth doo doo. But the best thing we ever did was get the folks who knew kids who couldn't hear to look at our child and help us understand what her issues were and what we would need to fight for. I can't tell you how invaluable this was. But because HOH is such a low incidence thing, you really need expert help. And outside the school system is usually where you find this. Another thing to look into is how well he is hearing in the classroom. Because not hearing well can cause isolation, lack of learning and a really bad attitude! We went through this in third grade. Maggie's teachers had always used the soundfield all day everyday, and even turned off the AC when teaching, and made sure she sat close to a speaker (we had 3 in the room). Then in third grade, the teacher decided she could hear when she wanted to hear and only used the soundfield for a few hours per week! And Maggie's attitude and behavior became awful, and we were getting notes home almost daily about what a poorly behaved child we had. We were mystified because this was new to us, and then we remembered the last time her behavior was so horrid, and that was before she got her hearing aids. So I went to talk to the teacher and that's when I learned she was using the soundfield so sparingly. We went round and round and I finally told her that what we were seeing was totally different than our experience over the past 3 years in the school and that the only difference I could see was that she wasn't using the soundfield. I asked her to try it our way for a week, and after a day and a half she called and admitted that we were right and she was seeing a totally different child. There is an article that I always give Maggie's teachers and you can find it on the web. It deals with minimal hearing loss, but I tell the teachers that her loss is about 5 categories worse than minimal and the issues are the same only bigger. You can find it here: http://www.totalhearing.net/child_faq_management.htm We're glad you found us. A lot of us have been in the same spot and you will get lots of varied advice. Use what works for your son and your family. And feel free to ask lots of questions. in GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 You can try looking periodically at closed sales on Ebay or online do a search for refurbished aids. Or, you can get an estimate of the expected life of the aids and prorate them. Please note that for donations worth over $500, you must have a statement of value from them or it can be disallowed if you're audited Re: Digest Number 2094 > Hi, I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me. I donated my sons old hearing aids to the Clinic last year. They could not give me a value to claim on our income tax. Do any of you have an idea of how to figure a value on used hearing aids? Thank you in advance > > > All messages posted to this list are private and confidential. Each post is the intellectual property of the author and therefore subject to copyright restrictions. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 You can try looking periodically at closed sales on Ebay or online do a search for refurbished aids. Or, you can get an estimate of the expected life of the aids and prorate them. Please note that for donations worth over $500, you must have a statement of value from them or it can be disallowed if you're audited Re: Digest Number 2094 > Hi, I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me. I donated my sons old hearing aids to the Clinic last year. They could not give me a value to claim on our income tax. Do any of you have an idea of how to figure a value on used hearing aids? Thank you in advance > > > All messages posted to this list are private and confidential. Each post is the intellectual property of the author and therefore subject to copyright restrictions. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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