Re: Summer services/school for newly implanted CI child

April 1, 2006

Cherie,

I'm new to this group as well, but wanted to reply to your post.

My daughter had her CI turned on at the age of 2 years 9 months and

she had 3-4 words at the time. (I believe we have actually

corresponded before, as my daughter also has AN and lost her hearing

at 16 months old and we don't know why). She started in an Oral

preschool class when she turned 3 in February and come May they said

she didn't qualify for summer services. It was the same reason you

were given - she would not regress over summer without services. Fact

is, we are dedicated parents that work with our children every day.

Our kids will probably not actually REGRESS without the school's

instruction. They may not move forward quite as much as they would

with their instruction (I mean, if I felt I could do as good of a job

for her myself, then why would she be there in the first place?) but

she's not going to come back from break saying less than she was when

break started.

In fact, we have found it to be quite the opposite. Each time

is on break from school (Winter, Summer) she goes back to school and I

comment to her teacher a couple of weeks later how much more she is

saying/doing compared to what she was doing with me at home. Her

teacher then laughs and says that she really thought that was

doing so much more when she returned to school from break! I really

think that is consistently improving, but it's hard for us to

see when we are with her ALL the time, and it's hard for her teacher

to see when she is with her all the time.

I DO understand your concern. Grace has a lot of catching up to do,

as did/does. However, the fact that they do not have services

through the Summer from school will probably not make them actually do

less than what they are doing now.

I encourage you to continue to lobby for Summer services if you feel

she needs it. I would ask what the Summer services would consist of

first, though, before you get blue in the face. When I asked what

they would consist of for us it was a few weeks of instruction for an

hour a day a few days during those weeks. It really did not compare

to what she was getting during the regular school year of 5 hours a

day every day, but all that they could offer for Summer.

Good luck!

Randi

April 1, 2006

Cherie, there is another reason that summer services can be given and that is

emerging skills - you would lose the momentum of the past 2.5 months of school

without the services. She is already behind in language and will fall further

behind without continual services.

However, in our county, there are NO services in the schools for the summer.

An outside group puts on an " educational " camp with at risk kids working with

the kids with disabilities. Not appropriate at all for learning language and

auditory skills.

You might be able to contract with someone to do more of an auditory verbal

thing, where you are given skills to work on with your child and coaching and

support in learning how to do that. Are you anywhere near an auditory verbal

center or is there someone from the school who would be willing to work with

your child during the summer. Sometimes if you find something you want then it

is just the problem of getting them to pay for it. in GA

Summer services/school for newly implanted CI child

>

>Hi! I don't post here often, I'm mostly on the CICircle group. But

>I have an educational question and this group knows the most about

>education!

>

>My daughter Grace is 4, CI was activated 1/9/06 so she has been

>hearing for about 2.5 months. She uses about 10 words now on her own

>and knows many signs so we get by with the daily task of

>communicating with her (mostly about her needs). She attends a half-

>day oral-deaf preschool and I want her to have summer school or

>services to continue her language learning. What sort of reasons can

>the school give me to not approve her summer school? I will have a

>letter from our CI audi and our ENT stating the need for Grace to

>continue to her formal education.

>

>I asked about summer school last fall and was given the

>standard " we'll have to see if Grace regresses before we approve

>summer school " . Given Grace's age and her late start with language,

>I'm not willing to wait and see if she regresses. I know she will

>regress. And I'm trying to find data or studies supporting that

>idea.

>

>Also, does anyone have an idea how they handle hearing kids who do

>not speak English? Like if I had a kindergartener who just arrived

>from Russia or China and didn't know any English, would they get

>summer school so they can catch up??

>

>I hate IEP meetings as I can be quite emotional when it comes to

>Grace's education. Any help or advice you have would be great!

>

>Thanks,

>Cherie

>, 6, hearing, and Grace, 4, AB Auria CI activated 1/9/06

>

>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.

>

April 1, 2006

Thank you for the information. I would be happy with almost any

services offered to Grace. If she got 2 1-hour sessions of AVT with

a TOD each week that would be great. It doesn't have to be an entire

school program at all. We already do an hour of private aural

therapy every other week but we are limited to 20 visits a year under

our insurance. This therapy counts as speech therapy. I agree that

Grace needs to continue what she is learning and mostly, right now,

they/everyone is trying to get her to listen, not so much worrying

about how she says things, only that she is getting it.

I watch her aural therapy and understand the concept of getting her

to pay attention to the sounds she hears, without seeing them. No

lipreading, no visual cues. But she does not cooperate with me at

home because I am Mom! She won't play the games with me. But I do

try to talk to her without letting her see my mouth so she has to

really think about what she heard. And she is getting it. But if I

can get a few hours a week of free service for her, that's great.

Great for Grace and great for my checkbook.

To me, it just makes sense to frontload these services and pay for

them now so Grace can be mainstreamed as soon as possible and

hopefully no services will be needed in the long-run.

Has anyone ever got their school system to pay for summer

auditory/verbal therapy through their private therapist? That would

be a tremendous help to us if that could count as Grace's summer

school and they pay for it. Then we could continue to pay for

therapy in the fall once school started again.

I'm all for bombarding Grace with as much formal learning as she can

handle now but I am limited in how much I can afford to pay.

Cherie

April 1, 2006