Taylor - Kindergarten IEP and Spring Sports

Hi From Taylor!

We have recently completed Taylor's kindergarten roundup screening.  She did amazingly well, scoring 99th percentile combined score.  I have to say this was one of those moments where I wanted to go back to my former self, who was so worried in the year following Taylor's profound diagnosis, and tell myself not to worry, that someday things would be great...  It's hard to believe how far she has come since June 2009 when she was diagnosed, or activated at age 15 months.  Thankfully I am able to use my perspective of Taylor's progress to allow me to enjoy Lauren's natural language acquisition with her bilateral CI's and not ruin the joy of parenting this wonderful child with the worry that we had when Taylor was young.

The IEP meeting for her kindergarten year was a meeting that I was anxious about because of her performance in the screening.  In spite of the high score, we were able to keep the IEP and continue to have Hearing Impaired Educator services and some access to the Audiologist.  The HI teacher will work with her on listening and advocacy skills.  We will have an FM system to use in the classrooms.  We are so fortunate that there are soundfield speaker systems in every classroom in our elementary school and the teachers are already used to wearing a microphone.  We are so glad to have Derek's current teacher as Taylor's teacher for the coming year.  That is a comfort to us since we have already developed a good relationship with her over the past 9 months.  We know there may be challenges to come but we are really feeling good about Taylor's kindergarten setup for next year.

Taylor continues to be a daredevil and a very physical little girl.  Here are some recent pictures.

Marco Island, FL Parasailing - Here's Jon with Derek (age 6) and Taylor (age 4).

  Taylor went parasailing on our spring break trip, and actually wore her ears during it.  We did the waterproof bag, clipped the bag to her hair, and put the swim cap on.  She was able to hear and talk the whole time!  They saw dolphins and a sea turtle from up there (300 feet at the highest).

We have completed spring soccer with Taylor scoring up to 3 goals in her games.  Her team was a great little group that we had played with in the fall too.  T-ball is now starting; we haven't quite figured out the ears for t-ball yet.  I'm thinking we will get her own helmet and then try to do the swimcap under it to secure the ears in place.  ??  Any advice on this?

Taylor and Lauren at the YMCA Tumbling Room

Taylor just finished her dance recital for the year.  There's nothing cuter than 4 and 5-year old girls in their dance costumes!

Dance Recital

I continue to be thankful for the bond that my girls have because they both need "ears" to hear.  I hope they are able to bring strength and advice to each other in the years to come.  There is such a bond between them already.  The other night, Taylor was crying after her bath, not wanting to get dressed and ran to her room.  Lauren picked up Taylor's ears and carried them upstairs to her.  :)

Sisters

Keeping those CI's on

How do we as parents keep the CI's on? That is one of the most fundamental challenges for parents of a CI kid. If the ears aren't on, then they aren't hearing.

My kids are all three ultra-active and I recognized this as my biggest issue with Taylor when she was activated at 15 months. At that time, we started using headbands with elastic loops seen into them, made by a local CI grandma. These are still our go-to method with Taylor, at age 4, as well as Lauren at 15 months.

Taylor participates in lots of sports, and so far we have been able to keep her hearing in all of them.

For dance, gymnastics, and soccer, we use our typical headband with 2 barrettes to ensure that the headband stays in her hair. This has been sufficient, except for when she does a forward roll where her head actually touches the mat ... If the coil pops off, she just replaces it and goes on.

For swimming, we use one CI and make a waterproof bag for it using a Foodsaver. There are several YouTube videos out there on how to waterproof a CI using the Foodsaver. Anyway, we put her hair in a regular ponytail and secure the bag in place with 2-3 barrettes. Then we cover her head and the bag with a swim cap (Lycra, not Latex). This works great! Diving in with flips and all, it stays in very well.

This week we are snow skiing. We do have her wear a helmet, and basically use the swim cap as we so do with swimming to hold it in place. We put on the ears with a headband. No waterproof bag is needed. We do not put her hair on a ponytail though, unless it is down low at the nape of her neck... Otherwise, the helmet wouldn't go on. So it goes in this order: headband with Ci's, swimcap, then helmet. Amazingly, she seems to be able to hear pretty well with the helmet on.

I hope this is helpful!