Life for a Mom with one HoH Child and a Communication Impaired Child

I know I've been a bit absent lately, life is completely insane anymore but, in all new, good ways! So, in some ways I'm back! :) I've decided to ease in slowly to getting this blog up and running by copying a few things I've shared on my other blog about once a week. With Tourette Syndrome awareness month fast approaching and Autism awareness month closing soon, I just wanted to share some thing for those who have no experience or no knowledge of various issues. I am not THE authority on these things, these are just my experiences with them...

There is no way around sharing bits and pieces of my life and leaving out why I homeschool or why I have OTs (occupational therapist) blogs, or SLP (speech language pathologist) links to share. So, in honor of my children and the many special needs families out there, each week I will feature a "special needs" issue that some families are dealing with, mainly things that my family has experience with. I also will be featuring various links to places that have helped us to work with or around one or more of my boys' own issues. As the numbers rise of children with one or more neurological disorders. I feel it's something that we need to address and include in our lives. Maybe learn enough about to be able to help each other out. I hope you'll come along for the ride! I promise to still share and post as I always have but, Tuesdays, they're for eye opening experiences that can bring all of us together! :)

This first, I am going to share some things on communication. In a house with a Hard of Hearing/deaf child and one who exhibits signs of Auditory Processing Disorder, I've had to learn my way around pretty fast and not always in the prettiest manner! I am by no means an expert on anything, I just want to share some posts from some very great places that have helped us along in our journey. These sights were good for DW who has a little trouble with hearing certain letters or sounds and they work well with JD who, well he's just all around hard to communicate with period, though he's made some amazingly HUGE strides just in the last year alone. Please note, that both of my boys are in OT, PT and JD is in ST (speech therapy) so, these sites didn't just do all the work!

First up is Speech Time Fun. I loved her two tap lights idea! Her suggestions and printables just add to feel of this exercise! It's a really neat thing to try, even if you can't get them to do the part where you record their own voice. It's still a fun thing or the kiddos to do with the tap lights!

*If your kiddo has a SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder with or w/o autism and has an aversion to white, you can always paint these. Just be careful to keep the paint out of the crevices. To change the light color, I used tissue paper and colored tape to cover the dome. *

Another great resource is Testy Yet Trying. There are a bunch of great printable cards to help your kiddo articulate the particular sounds. Though if you check out the blog itself, there are a myriad of other printables, games and ways to help your kiddo maybe learn to begin to communicate!

As a homeschooler with a preschooler who is obsessed with being homeschooled (I love these years!),  this site is a BLESSING a lot of the time. LiveSpeakLove is a great site that has so many printables and activities for you and your child to try! This one here, I cannot wait to try with the little guy!

This next site works well for my boys. My oldest, computer obsessed kiddo it works for practicing his blends, something he seems to have some trouble with on occasion. That being said, Reading Fun was awesome for teaching the preschooler his colors, patterns and a few other things too. It's a completely online group of activities for them to do by themselves or with you. 

If you have a special needs kiddo who...for lack of a better word has, "anger issues".....whether that is loosing it over the smell of fresh peeled oranges, or has tics so bad he/she rages out or because specifically their communication skills are behind, you know managing and trying to head off a meltdown is not easy. By a LONG shot! With my oldest son, he would get so upset so fast over something no one would see coming, he'd loose the ability to actually communicate that he was mad! Now, he's a VERY articulate young man, so it took everyone a while to figure out what was happening. We used a similar system from Speech Lady Liz! With JD, he just couldn't communicate period what his issue was so, for him, we did the faces chart. You'll find this great idea over on her I feel today post. 

If your curious about what sounds or letter sounds your child should be making correctly at what age, here is a great printable from Mommy Speech Therapy.

If you're concerned that your child is a later talker, here's a great post from Child Talk to give you some pointers. The best advice I can give is like a recent post I read, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat - everything as much as you can! If you've done all of these things, and you're concerned about your child's hearing, by all means take them in!!

If you find out that your child is Hard of Hearing or Deaf. It's really not the end of the world. I promise you that! A lot of people I knew growing up and have come to meet over the years are Deaf and PROUD of it. Truth be told, in some ways I envy the Deaf world! As a hearing mother I will never fully be a part of the deaf community but, I kind of get a hall pass on occasion! :)  Which is nice and the support you'll find within the community is.....overwhelming! It's truly an amazing experience and though as a hearing person, it makes me sad that my son will never really hear how beautiful the birds are, his life experiences will be richer and more complex at an earlier age than I could have ever known. So, don't be afraid to jump in with both feet, it's the one time I fully advocate jumping in without looking!

Here's a great starting point for you though, Hear My Hands has a great post to get you started. With information on ASL, the Deaf community, etc.

One of their resources listed there is ASL Pro. Let me tell you how awesome this site has been for me! You not only get to SEE how the hands/fingers move but, when I tell you that facial expressions can be paramount sometimes, I'm not joking! So, it's nice to see how the face moves with the sign. 

Another great site for trying to find support for you and your family is Hands and Voices. At least for me anyway, finding local support to help with my learning curve was invaluable! 

Sign language doesn't have to be just for the Hard of Hearing or Deaf kiddos. With my youngest, it enabled him to communicate where he couldn't do it verbally before. So, if your child has a communication issue and is capable of at least understanding sign, I'd give it a try. Another thing I can tell you, if your child is verbal or making noises and clearly wants to communicate, I'd try picture cards. I did this with JD and suddenly he could tell me what he wanted for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The meltdowns lessened and so I moved onto picture cards for his toys, clothes, etc. It was an incredible relief I think for him. 

There are probably hundreds more links, sites and advice out there and truth be told, I've been given so much over the last several years that I cannot remember it all. If you've got any sites, advice or ideas, feel free to share! I know I'd appreciate it! 

Living in the Land of the Hearing..

So, my husband got his new hearing aids last week and while I know that the one will not help him entirely to hear, I've found myself shocked at how well these new ones work for him!

He still asks me "what" a lot of the time but, he can actually hear me!! The first time in 9 years and it is bizarre. I've found that over the years whenever we would get into a disagreement, I would mumble under my breath with my head turned and felt quite comfortable knowing that he could not hear me. He still can't hear me exactly but, he can hear that I've said something...whoops! :)

I've found that since our oldest son has gotten aids that I have become painfully aware of how much I made them both live in the hearing world. Making no accommodations or being forgiving when their hearing didn't jive with how I perceived the world. All I saw was my burden of having to answer the "What" all the time or having to go to every conversation that my husband would have, every doctor's appointment, etc just to retell the whole conversations all over again. I always had to be within arms reach of the phone as no one else ever heard it ring. I suppose I could go on and on with "burdens" but, as I said, I've become painfully aware of all that they've had to endure from the d/hoh end.

They both couldn't go anywhere without me because neither one of them could hear people. Neither one of them wanting to ask someone more than once what they said. Not to mention that people looking away as they spoke made it much harder for them. So, they both became reliant upon me to relay communications, even between each other.

My voice especially happens to fall within a range that is hard for them to hear as well. So, my ever growing frustration with having to repeat things, always have to be around one or both of them, having to rely on someone else to do phone calls, drive thru window orders, etc with a voice that neither of them could hear very well...I can't imagine the frustration.

I've taken my time now to lower the tone of my voice and raise the sound of it, to face them when speaking and make sure that my stepson does as well. I still turn down the TV now when they are speaking on the phone, out of habit and courtesy. I still am there for every conversation, meeting etc but, the need for me, is less. It is a nice feeling!

While I am glad that they are hearing better, though I often wonder about DW's as he still asks "what" a lot, I have come to realize what a hearing world often asks of it's d/hoh members. So, instead of making my husband and oldest son live in my world, I am endeavoring to live in theirs. It is a novel idea to say the least and with DW and his TS+ it is still not easy but, I am giving it a hearty go!

*Though when your son turns to you and says, "if you don't start being nice, I'm going to shut my ears off", it may not be a good sign! :)*