Writing class

When I walked into Chance's writing class to help out, I was a little late. I peeped through the window in the classroom door and found Chance sitting at a table with a friend.

I made my way over to him and noticed that several of Chance's classmates were telling Chance that I had arrived, yet he didn't really respond or look up.

That was O.K., I figured he was just really immersed in whatever he was doing. And he was really immersed.

While the rest of the class hummed with the sounds of kids memorizing a poem, Chance sat calmly focused looking at his computer.

He finally saw me when I sat down next to him and then signed to me that his implants were turned off.

I nodded in acknowledgement realizing that was why he did not respond to the kids telling him I had arrived, and set my purse down.

Then it hit me that Chance had just told me that his implants were off while he was sitting in class.

I tapped him and asked him why.

He said that he could focus better on the poem he was supposed to memorize. And focus he did. Chance sat totally unperturbed by the girls at the next table over who were making up a hand slapping rhythm to memorize the poem.

In fact, the entire room had a low buzzing quality to it as a classroom full of kids repeated the verses and sometimes worked with a friend next to them.

Chance had a friend next to him too, who just kind of looked at Chance every so often. It's not like he could talk to him or ask him a question. He seemed just to understand that and sat alternating between looking at his own computer and checking out what the other kids in the class were doing.

Later when Chance got home from school, he informed me that he had gotten his poem all the way memorized.

I congratulated him and could not help but think that being able to turn off the rest of the class had major benefits sometimes.

I did tell Chance that he might want to let his teacher know when he removed the processor off of the magnets to let them dangle in unhearing bliss. Just so the teacher would know that if he did say something of importance, Chance was blissfully unaware:)

Caught in the act

Chance is doing very well. His speech is very good too and sometimes it is hard for people to know what he may need to be working on if they are not familiar with deaf children and don't know the specifics.

The speech therapist at the school is covering for the speech therapist that worked with Chance last year while she is on some sort of hiatus. I've heard that she will be back at the beginning of the new year or thereabouts. In the meantime, the speech therapist told me that Chance is doing very well and she was wondering what she should be working with him on. I don't know if the communication between the regular speech therapist and the one covering was very thorough, but it doesn't seem like the new therapist knows much about what Chance had been working on.

The speech therapist seems like a great lady and is very nice and I told her that I would give her some examples of where Chance needs some aid. Chance will say things sometimes in a way that shows he does not fully grasp how language should flow together. It is not horribly bad, but it is stuff that needs to be addressed. The older Chance gets, the more that will be expected of him and it will be assumed that he knows certain things about the way our language flows.

I forgot to bring a sample of some of Chance's language that could be worked on when I went to the school to help out this past week, so while Chance was having a down time reading, I took his laptop and began to go through some of his writing assignments. I knew that I had seen some language glitches while reading through some of his work.

The class was silent since the students were reading, and apparently I was so engrossed in writing down samples of language from Chance's work to give to the therapist, that I missed the fact that the teacher had told the class to pull up something on their computers. Chance came to me to get his computer and then into the silence of the room asked quite loudly,"What are you doing?!" The whole class looked at us.

My first thought was,"Um.........."

What was I supposed to say while the entire class was listening, "Chance I am picking out mistakes in your language in some of the papers you have written so that your speech teacher who will come to collect you in a few minutes for speech, knows what to work on with you? I'm picking our your language mistakes honey!"

Thankfully, after Chance's initial loud question of,"What are you doing?" he was more concerned with looking up on the computer what his teacher was telling him to.

Shortly thereafter, the speech therapist did come for Chance and while Chance ran to the bathroom, I went over the language issues I had pulled out of Chance's writing.

One of the examples that I gave to the speech therapist was this sentence out of Chance's writing: "Do you want more time to trick or treat? Well, I have some good reasons to tell you." Chance will be in junior high next year and it will be assumed that he has a grasp on the language to a certain degree. And he does have a good grasp on the language in a lot of ways, but sometimes I see things like this that he has written and it becomes clear that we need to work some on getting the language in his head ontothe paper a little better. Chance is a good writer, he just needs to fine tune some things.

The speech therapist said it was very helpful and gave her an idea of where she could be working with Chance.

Chance has never asked me what I was doing again and seems to have forgotten the matter.
We have Chance's IEP this week, so having examples of speech mistakes should help the speech therapist come up with ideas of goals that she can work on with Chance.

It all seems to have ended well:)

Say it with song..

Chance and his brother have chorus together at school. They are having their first concert of the year this coming week.

Last week, Chance's brother missed two days of school which left Chance to sing solo. (OK, there were all of the other kids in the chorus class singing along with him, but his brother was not there).

After school Chance proudly annonced to me that during class that day his chorus teacher had told the class that the only one singing loud enough was his friend Chance. Chance told me that he and his brother usually are the ones that sing out like their teacher wants the boys to.
My boys like to sing. This is good. The key is to keep them interested in singing through that award stage when many of the boys their age are declaring that singing is for sissies.
Chance's brother held on last year when several of the boys in the class transfered out of chorus as soon as they could since they said,"My mom made me take this class."

Chance and his brother really like singing together in class and it is fun to hear little snippets of songs escaping their lips that I had no idea they knew. Such as "Earth Angel."

Exposure to songs and learning to sing is fabulous for Chance and he really enjoys it. I hope he has a love for singing forever.

I think junior high will be when we face the biggest opposition. But his brother has held strong, bucking the trend of boys fleeing chorus. Chance can do it to:)

It's all about the rhythm

I help out in Chance's school a few times a month and this week as I sat in reading, an interesting question was posed to me.

The class was going over poetry and the rhythms of different verse. The kids were listening to dicern where the emphasis is in poems and which syllable gets the accent.

The teacher came to me and asked how well Chance could hear the differences in the slight variations in the poems.

That was a good question. I told her that Chance actually hears really well and she said that when she had asked him which syllable gets the accent in a line of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", he got it right.

I have not thought of this before. For me, the little rhyming sing-song cadence of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", has just been a part of life since childhood. It seems I have always known that poem and its sing-song rhythm.

But what about for Chance? He wasn't hearing the subtle differences when he was little so I wonder how this poem plays out in his brain?

His little brother can already recite much of this little Christmas classic simply because of the sing-song verses and the rhyming.

Chance seems to be getting the accenting and metering fine, but I don't know that he has the same little ditty that plays through his head as many of us do when he recites this classic poem.
Also, how does he hear the subtle differences in poetry? Does he catch all of the ups and downs in verse?

Now I will have to test this out and see. I want to see if he hears and appreciates the little subtle changes in verse especially when they don't rhyme.

Sometimes... It is Not OK!

Rarely in Chance's sojourn as a deaf child have I felt the need to put an adult in their place due to how they treated my son. We have been blessed to have mostly positive experiences and few outright persecutions due to Chance's deafness.

This week was an unfortunate week where Chance's inability to hear brought an unacceptable response from an adult at the school.

When Chance was first diagnosed as being deaf, I remember telling his dad that I could understand children saying things about his hearing aids or even making fun some as kids do when kids are different than them, but I would have no patience with adults who were mean to him due to his deafness. I feel adults should know better than to taunt a deaf child or any child who has a disability. And they should have more of an understanding as well.

This week at school however, an adult exhibited less than stellar behavior when interacting with Chance.

During school lunch, apparently some of the kids left their trays sitting on the table and did not clear them. To take care of this problem, a staff member at the school (not a teacher or principle) went out to find every 6th, 7th and 8th grade child to come to the lunchroom to help clean up since no one would fess up to leaving their trays.

Chance was upstairs in a little alcove at the top of the stairs that looks down on the lunchroom. Chance was sitting by a friend and suddenly his friend stood up and ran down the stairs. Chance said he thought, "I wonder why he got up and left so fast?" Soon, Chance found out as the staff member came to where Chance was and just yelled that he had to come down.

Chance said,"I was the only one there mom."

I asked Chance if he heard the man yelling before, and he said that he could hear that someone was yelling somewhere but he could not understand what they were saying.

Chance started scrambling to pack up his laptop and backpack as the man yelled out at the only child there which was Chance.

This staff member is loud to begin with. I have heard him at the school during lunch keeping the kids in line as they eat lunch. He has a very LOUD voice and it carries all the way down the hall. Plus, this man is a big man. The combination can be very intimidating to kids in normal circumstances I am sure.

The thought of this big loud man bellowing at my deaf son because he did not hear him calling the kids to the lunchroom, did not go over well with me.

Thankfully, Chance does not seem to have taken the situation personally.

My older son told me that this staff member was angry and was yelling at all of the older kids to come. My older son was outside eating lunch and heard yelling but by the time he got back inside, the incident appeared to be over. It was not, however, as the staff member then insisted that all of the older grades appear in the lunchroom the next day during lunch to clean during their lunch break. All of this because a few of the kids did not clear their trays. My boys bring lunch from home and don't even use the school trays so yelling at Chance because someone did not clear their tray was pointless to begin with. Chance is not a child that requires one to yell anyway. He is usually quite compliant and tries to adhere by the rules. He does not need harsh treatment to comply. I am told all the time by his teachers in school things like,"I wish all of my students were like Chance," and "He is no trouble at all."

I headed back up to the school to see the principle right after school and one of the things I told him was,"Someone yelling my son because he did not hear is not OK."

The principle told me that I had taken him off guard as he did not know about the situation but that he would email me when he checked it out. I have not heard back from him yet, though if he does not contact me by tomorrow, I will call him back.

I understand that there are a lot of kids to keep under control at the school, but this situation seems to have gotten out of hand. A man who will yell at a deaf child is a man who is out of control. He should have been able to realize that Chance was the only one in the room and may not have heard rather than go off on him. I think he should have been able to contain himself with all of the kids. Yelling and screaming at kids like that over left over trays is not a proper response from an adult with kids who have normal hearing let as well yelling at a deaf child who does not grasp what is going on. Was all of this yelling worth it? Was it effective? I don't think so. I think it just scared the kids spitless. This seems to have been more about control than moving towards a solution.

I am not one who regularly goes to the principle's office but I felt that this situation could not just be let go. Meanwhile, I am waiting to see what the principle says.

The importance of friends

When Carol Flexer gave a presentation in Salt Lake City she spent all day giving us great information to help the deaf children in our lives. As I listened throughout the day about helping these kids and helping them learn to self-advocate, something occurred to me: The advantage of having a few good friends that you feel comfortable asking questions. If you have a friend that you feel you can turn to and say,"What did she just say?" It could make all of the difference.
I began to wonder if as kids get older they actually are less inclined to ask questions when they miss what was said.

I think of myself in situations where I am in a group of people and miss something that was said. If everyone around me starts doing a task and they all seem to know just what to do, I usually won't ask right away what we are doing. I will sit back and observe everyone for a minute to see if I can figure out what I missed. When everyone around you seems to be in the know but you, sometimes you feel a little sheepish because they all got it and you didn't.

I can see how our deaf kids would just see if they could figure out what was going on instead of asking about what they missed especially as they get older.

I brought this topic up as I ate lunch with my deaf and hard of hearing friend and they readily agreed that there were times when they tried to figure out what was going on around them by observing those around them rather than ask questions as everyone else seemed to know what was going on. Especially in high school.

Chance with some friends at the Hogle Zoo

I thought of Chance's neighborhood friend that is in his class at church. I have seen Chance turn to him to clarify that he heard something right. He is comfortable doing that with this friend and so he does. I wonder if he would be as willing to ask if he was sitting by someone who was not a friend or someone that he didn't know well. Hmmmm.

I can see the advantage of being with people you feel comfortable enough to clarify things with or ask questions to when you are a deaf child.

I have seen Chance freely ask his friends in the neighborhood to clarify things and he will ask us in the family when he doesn't quite get what was said, but if he was sitting by a child he didn't know real well at school? I don't know that Chance would bother asking.

I think he would ask if the situation got desperate enough. Like if the room went silent and everyone was typing steadily on their computers and Chance didn't know what in the world they were supposed to be typing. I don't see Chance sitting and doing nothing instead of asking someone what they are supposed to be doing because it is important to him to do well in school and finish his assignments. But I do wonder if Chance would ask every time he needs to in various situations when he misses what was said. It is something to think and talk about with him to help him learn that part of self-advocating is asking questions even when he may not be completely comfortable, so that he knows what is going on.

Carol Flexer and vocabulary

Carol Flexer came out to Salt Lake City and spoke to parents, teachers, and those who work with deaf and hard of hearing children. She is an audiologist and quite amazing. I always learn something to use with Chance when I listen to her and I appreciate her knowledge.

It was after hearing Carol Flexer talk about how we should expect our deaf children to hear from 30 feet more than 6 years ago that got us seriously thinking about getting Chance a cochlear implant again.
My husband and I looked at each other and mouthed,"THIRTY FEET?"
We realized that we could have expectations like that with Chance's hearing.

When Carol came this last spring, she talked about many things that struck me and made me think. One thing she talked about was when a deaf child starts struggling in school when there was no problem before, don't immediately decide that it is the child. Look at the vocabulary and the terminology first. Many a deaf child has struggled due to the fact that they did not hear or understand the vocabulary or terminology, not that they could not get the concept. And the terms get more difficult as they get older.

This is a concept that I remember focusing on when Chance was younger, but I think I need to make sure that he is getting the terminology now.

Imagine how lost you could get if you just missed what eruption meant when doing a unit on volcanos in science. The teacher would start talking about the different signs that a volcano may present before it erupts and you would be trying to figure out what in the world she was talking about.

Or what if you missed what the word sum meant in math. The teacher would be up there telling you to figure out the sum and you would be a lost little puppy.

I went out to lunch with two deaf adults in the break during Carol's conference and it was so enlightening to learn from them. The gentleman had been one of Chance's consultants when he was in 2nd grade and wears hearing aids. The woman is a friend of mine who has bilateral implants.

I saw how when a baby started to cry a few tables over they both leaned in to hear better. I heard the baby but my hearing was not hampered by the noise.

I also learned from Chance's consultant that he has seen how vocabulary issues has side-tracked kids that otherwise are doing great in school. Once they understand the vocaulary they are good to go.

I know that Chance has some holes in his vocabulary. He went two years without hearing plus several years not hearing all that he needed to so every once in a while a word will come up that other kids his age will know the meaning of but Chance does not. He did not hear the word the 500 plus times they say a child needs to hear a word to "own it" from the ages of 1 to 6 like most of his peers. Plus, these deaf kids hear amazingly well but they do not hear absolutely everything.

I have requested that Chance's science teacher send me the vocabulary and terminology for their units as much of it is going to be stuff Chance has not heard before. I think it will do a lot of good to get the terminology and go over it with him to make sure he gets the meaning of the concepts at least the vocabulary involved. That will help ensure that he is on an equal footing with his peers when his teacher starts throwing around new terms that Chance has never heard before in his life.

Chance is the one they look up to now

Years ago, our family attended an A.G.Bell ice cream social in a park right after Chance was diagnosed.

We were a little like wanderers in a confusing universe. Our universe consisted of having an almost 3 year old diagnosed as being deaf and now we were trying to figure out what to do about it.

What tests did he need to determine the cause?

What doctor should we be seeing next?

How much was Chance hearing with his hearing aids anyway?

And perhaps the question that was topmost in our minds:"What was the best thing for Chance and what should we be doing about that?"

We ambled over to the pavilion and watched strangers with children with hearing loss. We were actually more interested in the children with hearing loss than with their parents at the moment.

Were the deaf kids really hearing?

Could they understand what was said to them?

Did they look happy?

How were the older ones, like 11, 12, and teen-agers? Were they talking? Could you understand them when they talked? What were they doing in school? Did they need all kinds of special help when they got to be that age? Were they integrated with their peers and not left out of everything?

Last night, 8 years after that first ice cream social in the park, Chance was the one being watched by parents with young children and babies with hearing loss. I introduced myself to a few parents and after briefing each other on our children's hearing loss situation, they would want to know where Chance was.

I would find him playing football, playing in the jumpy house or just goofing around with friends and call him over.

I would show him the little baby with teeny hearing aids and he would think they were cute. Then the parents would ask Chance a few questions:
How old was he?
What grade in school?
Did he like his implants?

He would smile and nod his sun-bleached head as he answered their questions.

Chance on recent campout with his Dad and brother

Chance represents the possibilities now. He is the bigger kid who talks, goes to a regular school and plays on the city league sports teams. He is completely capable and able to do whatever he wants to do.

The journey was not always easy and there were a lot of things we just didn't know. Our journey was a little different because Chance was diagnosed later and therefore we were playing catch up and none of the professionals dared to give us too much hope since no one had any idea what Chance would be able to do. It had not been established if the hearing loss was progressive. We did not know if there were other medical issues that accompanied the deafness. Chance had a lot of make-up time in language. He was well behind his peers his age and he had had no hearing input or any other language input for two years. No one quite knew what would happen with Chance.

Miracles occurred, that is what happened. Bonafide God-given miracles. Lots of prayer, years of effort, hard work, frustration, the unknown and never giving up have come to fruition. The results are in and the scores are awesome!

The possibilities for these deaf and hard of hearing children are amazing.

I hope some of those parents left the ice cream social a little more confident in their ability to carry on and realizing that the future for their deaf and hard of hearing children is bright. They will be able to do what ever they set their minds to. And those wonderful parents are just the ones to help their children on this incredible journey!~

Karaoke

Karaoke moments elicit fear into the hearts of many a person. There seem to be two types of people...those who get up and have a good time singing karaoke, and those who given the choice would rather take their chances swimming with a shark.

Our church congregation had a party up the canyon by our house with a picnic and karaoke singing. A red book was passed around with all of the possible songs one could sing in front of friends and neighbors.

As the night wore on and Chance listened to more and more people get up and sing, he and his sister decided that they would like to give it a go. So they found a song that they knew called,"Hey There Delilah" and up they went in the mountain air to sing their song.

Chance did not know all of the words to the song and instead was relying on the scrolling screen in front of him that displayed the lyrics to fill in the gaps.

At first he just sort of looked down at the screen trying to make sure he didn't miss any of the words like his sister. He did a good j0b singing all of the words and soon the two of them began to loosen up.

After he was done, he was so proud of himself and he told me," Mom! At first when I got up I was nervous and was just trying to sing all of the words, but by the end of the song I wanted to sing all of the songs in the book!"

Ahhh the confidence of youth. Maybe it was the mountain air, but whatever it was, I hope Chance retains this confidence forever.

Chance tells the state school board about his great teachers

A few months ago the state of Utah had a series of meetings to determine what should be done with the School for the Deaf and Blind. In a nutshell, due to the passionate views on the debate on whether deaf children should learn to talk or use sign language, the states school board of education had been hearing many complaints about the education of deaf children. People were unhappy that their particular choice was not being honored the way they thought it should through funding etc. And frankly, the school board had heard enough complaining that they were wondering if the School for the Deaf and Blind should even exist anymore. They felt that perhaps the services provided by the school should be transferred to the various school districts in the state. Bad, bad, bad idea!!

Some people just don't understand the education of deaf children. I of course come from the listening and spoken language route, having a child with bilateral implants. What is done for these kids in the early years makes all of the difference in their later years of life. In my opinion, few investments offer such a huge pay off for the state in the long run as that of giving young deaf children the services they need when they are young.
Take Chance for instance. Chance is thriving and is completely capable to compete with his hearing peers in school, sports, scouts etc. He got what he needed when he was young and now it is paying great dividends.
Since Chance has been so blessed by the services offered through the School for the Deaf through the years, he accompanied me and his father to testify before the state school board of the importance of the services that are provided by the school. Passing these services off to local school districts would be a tragedy for deaf kids and I am not exaggerating in saying that. The teachers and professionals at the School for the Deaf are trained to work with deaf kids and give them what they need so they get what they need to reach their potential.

Special education teachers along with school speech therapists would try to give what was needed but frankly they just don;t have the training to give these deaf kids what they need.

Thankfully, the state school board has not dissovled the School for the Deaf as of yet, and hopefully, they never do. The school is vital for our deaf children to get what services they need and we have a great spoken language program with superb teachers and professionals who are dedicated to these kids.

Long live the School for the Deaf!

Here is Chance's speech to the state school board of education: (it is a bit choppy sorry about that - no image-stabilizer, and volume in room was low... )