Amazing World of Speech and Language

With a background in speech-language pathology, naturally I have a certain affinity for language development. With a daughter who has a hearing loss, she makes my interest run deeper. I have learned much over the years about communication development in young children, but am in awe to see the natural process unravel before me with my own daughter. It is truly amazing to see it all unfold, ever so naturally (ok, with a little intervention ;-)

On another occasion I will write more of my daughter's hearing loss, but I must say how overjoyed I am at the progress she has made with language development overall. Her first word, "duck" was at 8 months. She now is 23 months to the day and I cannot count the number of words she has. She commonly uses four word phrases and has a strong, diverse vocabulary. I am so thankful that we found out about her hearing loss so early on, although difficult as it was at the time, we have certainly reaped the benefits of early screening, evaluation, diagnosis, and fitting of her hearing aids. She had her hearing aids by 5 weeks. She does very well with her hearing aids and is ahead of where she needs to be language wise. I'm not saying she is out of the woods as I am aware she will likely have some struggles as she enters school, but for now I am happy.

Here's a couple of my favorite things from her language right now:
Plurals- It's fun to see children messing around and learning about plurals. Currently she says, "oranges" for orange and "lunch boxes" when referring to one lunch box.

One area that may prove difficult, although subtle- She has trouble hearing some high frequency sounds like /s/ and /sh/. In certain circumstances, if she does not hear those sounds, it changes the meaning of the word completely. Here's a funny example from today:

While in the living room excitedly delving into a bag of hand me downs that we love, there stood Little Miss Sunshine with no pants on. I said, "Go get your pants and we can put them on". She then retreated to the kitchen and I could hear a lot of banging. She returned to the living room not with pants, but with PANS! Very subtle, but it completely changed the context. I almost wet my pants laughing. Not a huge mistake, something we all might do, but it seems to be a little more commonplace for my daughter. I can't help but chuckle a bit. And, I must say looking back at the uncertainty we felt when we first were told about her loss, how grateful I am that these are the things she struggles with. I am grateful she can hear the birds chirp, hear my voice, and hear my husband sing. What a blessing in our lives. (Just got my camera back today- I will update with a photo later)

Mood Enhancer

When my daugher,Little Miss Sunshine, accompanies me to the basement to "help" with the laundry, she generally slowly inches away and begins digging through my old boxes. She recently dug up one of my favorite high school tapes, made in February 1990, my senior year. I popped it into the tape deck (this morning so glad we still have one!) and instantly remembered how much I LOVE 80's music. I need to keep that in mind that next time I'm feeling down. 80's music is a natural mood enhancer for me. I tend to be somewhat reserved, but admittedly, 80's music pulls out a different side. Hmm, perhaps I should just think about getting an ipod afterall.

Here's a list of the songs on the tape in case I ever lose my tape:
Side A
Dont' Ask Me Why- Eurythmics
Work is a 4 Letter Word- The Smiths
Only You- Yaz
Should I Stay or Should I Go- The Clash
Love My Way- The Psychedelic Furs
Doot Doot- Freur
Inside Out- The Mighty Lemondrops
Balloon Man- Robyn Hitchcock
Moonbeam- Men Without Hats
In Your Eyes- Peter Gabriel
Play For Today- The Cure

Side B
Rock Me Amadeus- Falco
Something We Can Do- Vitamin Z
Will Never Marry- Morissey
Bizarre Love Triangle- New Order
Rock the Casbah- The Clash
Games Without Frontiers- Peter Gabriel
Melt With You- Modern English
Secret Separation- The Fixx
Oh L'Amour- Erasure
Boys Don't Cry- The Cure
Funny How Love Is- FYC

Town Democracy

This evening I participated in my first Town Meeting. I can't help but feel I am a little closer to being a "grown-up" now. I've been meaning to attend for months now, but always seem to have a hearing loss meeting or something else scheduled the same day. I was so happy to have had this evening open. My parents live in the same town as me, for a few months in the year at least. They live in Florida for most of the year and are actually Florida residents. However, always involved in their communities, they know more of events taking place here in my little town while they are away then I ever would be aware of. Naturally, they emailed reminders several times of the town meeting stressing the importance of my vote. If I want to see improvement in my town, I need to be active. Since they read the town paper and were aware of some of the issues, they provieded some suggestions on how to vote on some specific articles.

Off I went to the meeting held in the high school auditorium that was crammed with over 575 residents. As I waited in line to check-in and receive my voters card, I clutched the printed email of the articles my parents suggested I vote on and how I might vote. I really had no idea what to expect and was not quite sure of what I was voting on in the first place. I just trusted that my parents seem to make good decisons, so at least this was a good start to my involvement.

I was fascinated how the meeting ran. Many of the articles were addressed out of order as townspeople requested some changes. Interestingly, we never got to the articles my parents mentioned. As it turned out articles discussed and voted upon carried a lot of weight for the future of our town and had some great significance to me and my family. I felt so happy to be able to make my own decisions and actually understand what I was voting on. I have to say, I got a rush from that experience. I came home so elated and talked a mile a minute as I described the turn of events to my husband. I'm now eager to learn more of my community and what I can do to help make it an even nicer place to be and raise children.

Finding a Groove

So, after only a few posts,I have quickly lost my groove for blogging. Not really sure what is going on, I just plain haven't felt like it. I haven't really been keeping up with others' blogs either. How do people do it? How do people keep up with all their friends online, write their own things, visit message boards, have a voice, etc. all while attending to the needs of children, maintaining a home, exersizing, reading, creating, and the list continues. I suppose lately I've just been a little tired out and have been using my free time to nap. May as well enjoy while there is still a nap time!