January 4th, 2010

Today we had a visit from the TOD's (Teachers of the Deaf) that will be working with Carver when he starts pre-school. They wanted to do a "functional" hearing test. They presented several different sounds to Carver and looked for a response. It was noted that Carver needs to be reminded to "listen" when you're working with him. Because Carver doesn't see, he now hears (thanks to his CI's) lots of sounds around him all of the time. A lot of the sounds have no meaning to Carver, yet. Carver has a tendency to get wrapped up in what he is doing - like playing with a toy, his hands, or just trying to get comfortable to take a nap. He easily tunes out a lot of the surrounding sounds. So, when someone new wants to work with him, they can't just shake a toy and expect him to respond to the noise. It's not necessarily that he can't hear it, it's that he has "tuned" it out. So, we have found that if we first say, "Carver, listen", then present a sound, we get a response to the sound because he knows that he is supposed to be listening for something - someone is playing or working directly with him. I'm really excited about the TOD's genuine interest in helping Carver learn. Based on the testing, it sounds like they are going to make a recommendation to spend a great deal of time with Carver in the classroom on a daily basis - especially in the beginning. They want to figure out what works for him. Carver needs to be able to communicate in order to progress. This will be a huge focus - especially in the beginning. They had a lot of great ideas. I'm excited to see them in action.