THE MOST AMAZING SPIDERMAN

Look at this video: For Mamaw Tina & Papaw Jeff

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Evan's mom sent me this rockin' video of the finest looking Spiderman I've seen yet! Evan is four years old and wears hearing aids. GO EVAN!!!! I SEE A FUTURE IN FILM!!!!!

Thank goodness for hearing aids! As I stated in a previous blog, Jordan has a profound hearing loss and our audiologist immediately fitted him for hearing aids ten years ago upon his diagnosis. Jordan wore hearing aids for eight years before we decided to go ahead with cochlear implant surgery. Cochlear implant surgery is not an option for all children as there are varying degrees of hearing loss, and according to FDA guidelines:
Children between 12 months and 4 years who get
little or no benefit from appropriately fitted hearing
aids and do not reach developmentally-appropriate
auditory milestones are candidates for cochlear
implants, as are children 4 years and older with
severe-profound hearing loss who score < 12% on a
difficult open-set word recognition test or < 30 % on
an open set sentence test.*
*These are FDA guidelines in the US. Parents should consult a
cochlear implant center well before their child reaches 12 months
of age to begin candidacy determination and insurance pre-approval. (Copied from the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Circle Brochure - PARENTS TO PARENTS:COCHLEAR IMPLANTS FOR KIDS...IF YOUR AUDIOLOGIST OR EARLY INTERVENTION PROGRAM WOULD BE INTERESTED IN OFFERING COPIES OF THIS BROCHURE, PLEASE EMAIL ME AT jodi@rallycaps.net)
Regarding the various degrees of hearing loss (see http://deafness.about.com/cs/earbasics/a/typesofloss.htm for more information) There are basically four degrees (countries outside of the United States may not use the same terms):
Mild - At 26-45 db, a little difficulty hearing speech. Even a mild hearing loss can be serious for children still learning to talk.
Moderate - At 46-65 db, more difficulty hearing speech.
Severe - At 66-85 db, a lot of difficulty hearing speech. It is at this level that we begin to use the term "deaf."
Profound - Anything over 85 db. With this level of hearing loss, hearing aids may or may not help; cochlear implants are often an option.

Parents choose whatever approach to deafness they find works best for their families and this depends greatly on the child's degree of hearing loss...