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Ellen Rhoades post on cicircle
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Owen Kellie-Smith
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Feb 02, 2005 02:09 PST
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I found the following message on the cicircle very helpful. It's
reproduced here (with the author's permission) out of context but will
hopefully be of interest.
Owen
Message is also at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cicircle/message/2808
From: "Ellen A. Rhoades"
Date: Wed Jan 26, 2005 9:15 pm
Subject: Some highlights
i read with much interest everyone's comments on the subject of
listening, incidental hearing, and expectation levels.
although several of you have stated the following points in one way or
another, i think these points, however simplistic they may be for some,
bear repeating many times over:
1. anyone with a severe or worse bilateral hearing loss but with one
effective hearing prosthesis remains a single-sided deaf person...and
will be limited as such.
2. the child's age at time of access to soft conversational speech is
absolutely critical to maximizing use of effective hearing, i.e., we
know that children receiving cochlear implants during the first 12
months of life have a significantly far better chance of attaining
'anonymous normality' than do those implanted at later ages.
3. each child is truly unique, coming into this world with different
neurons...this is so, even for 2 kids coming from the same parents. the
needs of each child vary and how the same set of parents meets such
needs can vary as well (from child to child). making a statement about
what can and cannot be attained by kids with implants is patently unfair
to at least one other child's parents. exceptions to general statements
are the rule.
4. any parent who truly seeks auditory-based communication for their
child needs to undergo a conceptual paradigm shift which, in turn, truly
affects expectation levels. with effective CIs at a young age, the child
BECOMES a hearing child. stop thinking hearing child vs CI child...the
CI child IS A HEARING CHILD, although he may not hear normally.
5. young normally hearing children typically go through questioning
stages when they ask questions seemingly just to ask. unless we have a
proven/valid reason not to do so, the child with a hearing prosthesis
should not be held up to a different yardstick than those with normal
hearing.
6. when a child with a hearing prosthesis asks for repetition, a good AV
therapist learns to first ask "What did you UNDERSTAND?" this way, we
can ascertain the roles of confidence in what was understood, what parts
were missed, and past listening habits. It is the wise adult who clearly
differentiates between hearing and understanding.
7. AVT sessions, by definition, include the child's parent. even if the
child's or parents behaviors are inappropriate during the course of the
session, both child and parent must still be included. one critical
purpose of each AV session is to develop an appropriate parent-child
interactional style....absencing a parent prolongs the actuality of this
occurring.
8. listening conditions are extraordinarily variable fron situation to
situation, depending on an incredible number of factors. this is why one
child can overhear one day and not another day, and the situations may
seem similar to the adult. incidental hearing can be learned via
disciplined listening practice. at the least, eavesdropping is a skill
that mandates a modicum of interest on the part of the listener.
i apologize for inserting such a long recap as a result of those emails
i read in my recent digest, but did this with the hope this may be
helpful for some of you lurking on this listserv.
ellen
(a hearing A-V therapist with congenital bilateral deafness)
Ellen A. Rhoades, Ed.S., Cert AVT
www.AuditoryVerbalTraining.com (web site)
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