Video conferencing at home

Today two guys have come to install a video conferencing unit in our home so we don't have to go to Australian hearing to use their unit. This will be really good for us because we wont have to get baby sitters every Friday and it is one less time per week that we have to go out for our appointments with Raphael.

RIDBC are fully funding the unit. I can scarcely believe that they are willing to fund this. It is costing them a fortune in start up and ongoing costs.

RIDBC - hearing specialist

I went along to the RIDBC teleconference at the Australian Hearing venue this morning (with Annie and Raphael). The teacher had brought along a hearing specialist to talk about Raphael's hearing and language development.

She explained the stages of hearing and language development and she said that Raphael is still within the normal range for his age. She emphasised using cause and effect to encourage his hearing skills. Eg play a game with him and ask him if he wants more. If he responds (in anyway) then reward him with more of the game.

Point out sounds when they happen and what they mean. eg If you hear a door close then say "that was the door, I wonder who that was" and then take him to go and investigate. Also use simple sounds to associate with toys such as zooming planes and mooing cows.

We don't know how/if his face palsy will effect his speech yet, but it is encouraging that he can close his mouth.

When talking to him it is important to:

• get down to his level so he can see our faces
• speak in a normally volume to him (it is possible that louder volumes can be distorted in babies ears)
  
• speak clearly
• make sure there is no background noise

There are stages in hearing and speech development:

1. Listening skills
   
1. Detection (is there sound or no sound) - Raphael doesn't have a normal range of detection yet, but he can detect some sounds.
2. Discrimination - Determining one sound being distinct from another.
3. Identify sound - knows what a sound is (eg door slamming).
   
4. Comprehension - knows what a sound means eg understanding words such as ball to the level that if we say ball then he might look around for the ball.
2. Speech skills follow (although he might start experimenting with sounds sooner than this to imitate sounds).
   

First RIDBC teleconference

Annie took Raphael to his first RIDBC teleconference session this morning. I was not there so I can't comment on what went on. I believe that Annie recorded the session though so I'll have a casual listen at home tonight.

RIDBC and Australian Hearing

Today we received a package from RIDBC (Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children) containing:

• A few toys to borrow (these are great, we had to forcibly extract these cool new toys from our older kids so we could play with them - erm I mean so that Raphael could play with them);
  
• Some suggestions on methods that we can use at home to test Raphael's vision and hearing; and
  
• Some specific games designed to solicit responses from visual and auditory stimulation.

Annie will hopefully go to a video conference with Raphael's RIDBC teacher who is in New South Wales. The teacher said that her speciality is for blind children, it is a shame that in our case Raphael is more deaf than blind, but we are very happy to get the multi-sensory loss early intervention services.

I say "hopefully go" because the venue that hosts the video conferencing facilities in Hobart is owned by Australian Hearing and they will only allow their own clients to use this facility. So guess what we did... that's right, we applied to become clients of Australian Hearing. This bureaucracy is actually good because we were not aware of Australian Hearing before. Australian Hearing are the Australian federal government group responsible for supplying hearing aids for children who are assessed as needing them. To qualify for this free service we need to apply and we are required to have a doctor's referral. So tomorrow morning we have a an appointment with our GP to get one of these. Hopefully all of this will be sorted out by Friday so we can use the video conferencing facility.