KEIRA'S VIDEOS PLANTED THE SEED...

A couple of months ago Keith, Keira's FATHER posted the two videos you will see below on the PEDIATRIC COCHLEAR IMPLANT CIRCLE. Two things struck me about his post, first that he is an active FATHER (like my own hot hubbie), and second I was deeply touched that he had chosen to share such a personal part of their family's life. The process of Auditory-Verbal Therapy is a highly emotional journey. Trying to help a deaf child learn to speak as rewarding as it can be in the end is a heart-wrenching, strenuous, frustrating, and agonizing trip of highs and lows. A parent must be completely involved in the process by teaching lessons at home and rendering even the most inanimate of objects a lesson in speech and language. The child begins working as a baby, sitting in a high chair, repeating, indicating, processing four times a week plus hours and hours at home- total concentration on helping the child understand his world and assisting him to find his voice to be understood.
Jordan has a very frustrating character, he is STUBBORN! This has both helped him and hindered him; he fought his therapists every single lesson until he realized at age 8 that they were trying to help him find his voice and at age eight, he realized that he wanted a voice and needed one. So, he began to collaborate. He just came home from school and announced that his class voted him CLASS REPRESENTATIVE -I am not only proud of him, I am happy for him. For every low, there is a super-high, we concentrate on the highs here in this family and use our lows as teaching moments to grow.

KEITH WRITES:
*******
I would like to introduce Keira now 2 a Freedom user(one ear) since April 23, 2007. We found out that Keira was deaf in September of 2006 after an ABR test was done. Before this the wife heard about cochlear implants from some show she saw on TV. So we started looking into it and decided that this was what we wanted for Keira. Up to this point, Keira had started signing and was getting pretty good at it in a short period of time. But months after she was implanted, she slowly stopped signing and started using some words. Or what sounded like words...mmmi for milk, wawawa for water and a couple of others. Now almost 7 months later she tells me NO or stop(when the music stops) but the best part is she says "Daddy (ady) and Mommy." Please watch the videos and you can see her grow.
KEITH (FATHER OF KEIRA, 2 YRS.OLD)

INTRODUCING KEIRA!!! THESE ARE THE VIDEOS THAT PLANTED THE SEED FOR A BLOG THAT LETS OUR KIDS DO THE TALKING (PARENTS ARE SO OVERRATED:)))...