In this posting, we have listed all the questions that Dr. Andrew Kendrick was asked during his presentation on May 20th.
UPDATE: NOW you can find the answers given by Dr. Kendrick in this posting as well! Please feel free to comment!
Dinara – Almaty: Because of constant lessons, I do notice my daughter is losing interest in books. [How to prevent this?]
Make sure you let your daughter read for fun and enjoyment. Let her see you and other family members reading for enjoyment – books, magazines, recipes, comics etc. You will show her the way by modeling reading for enjoyment.
Have plenty of books, appropriate for her age to just pick up and read – don’t correct all the time if she is reading for pleasure.
Create experience books about her direct experiences and let her cut and glue or draw so it becomes her book.
Does an FM system fit any speech processor? My daughter wears the Med-El Opus 2.
You are best asking the Med-El about their FM systems.
Dr.Bischoff-Freiburg: Do the teachers in pre-school have any experience about children with hearing loss?
Many do now since most children are now integrated into regular preschool. We have a resource ‘Newly Implanted Pre-schooler’ (http://www.cochlear.com/files/assets/newly_implanted_preschooler.pdf) and a book called Strive and Thrive Refresh (http://www.cochlear.com/files/assets/strive_thrive.pdf). These two resources have lots of great tips for regular school class teachers; many of the tips are also very helpful for preschool.
I encourage my families to make regular times to visit the pre school teacher to chat about how the child is going. It is best to make an appointment with the teacher rather than trying to catch them at the beginning or end of the day as during these times they are generally busy getting ready or packing up.
Use a communication book that sits in the child’s school bag. Make notes of things you think the teacher should know and encourage the teacher to also note things of interest that happened to the child that day such as they had a visit from the animals at the local sanctuary. This way you have some background about the child’s day which you can then discuss at home.
Dr. Kendrick: I’m very interested in your work with parents of a very young child (2 years old). You said the language evironment is most important. Which advice do you give parents in these early years to get them into dialogue with their child?
I encourage them to use both Parallel Talk and Self Talk.
Parallel Talk is when the parent talks about what the child is doing so I encourage parents to interact with the child in play and environmental routines such as meal time, getting dressed, visiting grandma etc. While they interact the focus of the parent should be on what the child is doing and they provide a running commentary. Many parents are so caught up with their own agenda e.g. ‘I must teach my child to say bottle, juice’ etc that they miss their child’s play and interactions.
Self Talk – this is where the parent talks about what they are doing. Say the child wants a drink; the parent might get up to go to the fridge to get some juice so he/she says “Mummy needs to get your juice from the fridge, let’s open the door and get the bottle. I’m going to pour your juice”. Self Talk gives the child increased exposure to language and it is still directly involving them therefore you typically have a heightened sense of awareness in the child and this is when he is most receptive to learning.
sveta petrisheva-simferopol: When could you reattach a HA to the second ear after cochlear implantation? Before the surgery the child was not badly habilitated with a HA. He is 9 years old and got his CI 2 months ago.
I would attach the hearing aid immediately as at 9 years of age he is completely reliant on the signal the hearing aid gives him (I am assuming he developed spoken language with his hearing aid). I would set up specific times for the child to use his CI only and these would be when he is at home after school and on weekends. He should, in my opinion, use both hearing aid and CI when he is at school and with friends. It would not be fair for the child to not have access through his hearing aid in these situations.
I would run through the auditory hierarchy starting with awareness and moving through to comprehension with his CI only when he is at home.
Should we switch off the non-linear frequency compression setting (soundrecover) [on the HA] given the fact that the other ear is implanted, if the child was habilitated with this setting.
I am going to pass this on to one of our audiologists to answer and will get back to you with a response.
Elena Voroneg: We are entering mainstream school this year. Do we have to use FM?
I would recommend using an FM and I typically counsel the child and teacher use the FM when it is more than 60% teacher directed during classes such as language, maths etc. During this time there are usually new concepts, language and information being imparted through the teacher so you want your child to have the best listening environment for this new information.
When the teacher has less than 50% input, such as art & craft, playtime etc, I recommend no FM as the child does must be able to filter background noise just as hearing children do. He also needs to hear the communication and conversations around him that occur when the lesson is less teacher directed.
Ludmila Crimea: In your opinion, a ‘critically important’ (crucial) age is from birth until…
The literature says birth – 3 years is really critical as this is the period of rapid brain growth, and remember: our job is to grow the child’s brain and this is best achieved through early identification, early fitting of appropriate device and appropriate early intervention.
However rapid learning of language continues to develop with hearing 7,8, 9 year old children learning three to four thousand words per year, this they primarily do through incidental learning in the playground, at their friends house and at home. Again, if they are going to be successful in this, they need great access to sound and superior listening skills.
Monika Lehnhardt-Auggen: What is the approx. cost of FM in Australia?
All hearing devices are free to children birth to 21 years of age. FM systems are around AUD$3,000