Christmas Decorating Barrier Game

A simple “Decorating for Christmas “ activity was a huge hit for an adult in post-CI auditory rehab. This barrier game was played with her brother who is volunteering as her communication coach. Their competition led to her performing the best so far as she followed auditory directions and incorporated clarification skills.

 It seems that Christmas is really is the most wonderful time of the year.

INSPIRATION STATIONS AG Bell 2016

INSPIRING OTHERS TO DO GREAT WORK

Stop by and visit my Inspiration Station

on Saturday, July 2nd

 4:45 to 5:45 

at the AG Bell Convention 2016, in Denver

“Inspiration Station” Presenters will share an idea, activity, or materials that they have used to develop listening and spoken language therapy and in auditory rehabilitation. Attendees will flow through the room of table presentations. Join in the energy! Join in the fun!

Check back as the Game Changer Downloads 

will be posted after the convention in July.

Is Auditory Rehabilitation Right For Me? Considerations

Pursuing-an-Appropriate-Rehabilitation-Program

From Cochlear Americas.com 

• Do you understand most speakers easily and completely?
• Are you able to understand a speaker without seeing his/her face? What if the speaker is at a distance?
• Does your comprehension in noise remain largely the same as in quiet?
• Can you follow and participate in a group discussion?
• Are you able to use the telephone easily and with full comprehension of most speakers?
• Are you free of anxiety (related to communication) in new environments (e.g., phoning someone you don’t know, communicating in an unknown setting)?
• If you have recently received a second (bilateral) cochlear implant, is your speech understanding via the second implant as good as the first?

Auditory Rehabilitation- What to Expect.

Today's post can be found at:  Med-El  http://www.medel.com/us/max-listening-and-com-auditory-rehabilitation/

Nothing is most important to realizing the benefits of having a cochlear implant than auditory rehabilitation therapy. Improvements following initial programming sessions tend to happen quickly, but further improvements can surface for many months and even years. The involvement of your family and friends in the therapeutic process greatly enhances success.

You can expect therapy programs to include some or all of the following components:

•    Counseling

•    Auditory training, including analytic skill development

•    Communication skills training

Conversational techniques - Repair strategies

Assertiveness training - Interpersonal skills

Coping mechanisms 

•    Voice therapy

Articulation - Voice and resonance

Rhythm - Timing

•    Speech production training

•    Speech reading

•    Guidance

Information on the auditory system 
and hearing loss

The effects of hearing loss on communication

The impact of background noise and 
poor listening conditions

The importance of visual input, audiovisual 
integration and attending behavior

The impact of talker differences 
and social conditions

Benefits and limitations of speech reading

Benefits and limitations of assistive devices

The use of community resources

Self-help groups

Depending on individual needs, therapy goals 
may include:
 

•    Development of realistic expectations

•    Systematic auditory and auditory-visual training 

•    Communication skills training

http://www.medel.com/us/max-listening-and-com-auditory-rehabilitation/

Terms Related to Auditory Rehabilitation

This blog post was adapted from an article entitled, 

“Hearing Related Terms You’ll Hear in Cochlear Implant Therapy”

by Donna Sperandio, Head of Rehabilitation at MED-EL

You can read the original article HERE

http://www.medel.com/blog/hearing-related-terms-cochlear-implant-therapy/

If you’ve just received a hearing implant there might be a bunch of hearing related terms, words, and definitions that you’re just learning about for the first time. Or even if you’ve had an implant for a while one term that you’re not familiar might just pop up.

This can happen when you’re going through rehabilitation sessions or talking with your hearing specialists like audiologists, therapists, or teachers of the deaf. So, I wanted to put together this list of the technical hearing related terms and jargon that your specialists might use.

How You Interact With Sound

1. Listening: paying attention to any sound, or making an effort to hear a specific sound
2. Hearing: being able to perceive sound
3. Detection: being able to notice the existence of a sound
4. Discrimination: telling the difference between one sound and other sounds
5. Speech: the physical process of making a sound with the lips, tongue, and other speech organs
6. Language: a system of symbols or sounds used to communicate thoughts, emotions, and more

Hearing Related Terms

1. Babbling: producing vocal sounds that repeat the same syllable (like “ba-ba”) or use a sequence of similar syllables (like “ba-ma-ba-ma”)
2. Body language: using gestures, facial expressions, or body movements to communicate physically either instead of, or as well as orally
3. Chronological age: how old someone is as measured from their date of birth
4. Communication: conversing or exchanging information through social interaction
5. Consonants: the letters and sounds of a language that are not vowels, and which require the speaker to completely close his or her throat, mouth, or lips; b, f, m, and t are examples of consonants in the English language
6. Consonant-like sounds: a baby’s first sounds, before and during their babbling phase, which sound like consonants but are not perfect yet
7. Decibel: a measurement of the loudness of the sound, like if it’s loud or soft, often abbreviated to “dB”
8. Environmental sounds: all non-speech sounds that exist in everyday life, like the telephone ringing, birds chirping, or traffic noise
9. Expressive language: spoken or signed language used to convey thoughts, intentions, or emotions
10. Frequency: a measurement of the pitch of sound, like if it’s a high-pitch or low-pitch sound, often expressed in Hertz (Hz)
11. Fitting: the process of setting the cochlear implant audio processor’s program so that it is customized to its user, sometimes called “programming” or “mapping”
12. Gesture: moving a part of the body to communicate, like pointing at an object
13. Hearing age: how long someone has been wearing an effective hearing loss solution, like a hearing aid or hearing implant, is often used to give a more accurate representation of someone’s auditory development than their chronological age
14. Hearing aid trial: the 2–3 month test period where someone tries out their hearing aids to find out if they are an adequate hearing loss solution
15. Implicit learning: learning something that is not being obviously demonstrated or taught directly
16. Intensity: another way of saying “loudness”
17. Jargon: the variety of syllables said by infants which sound like speech, and which contains sounds and syllables, but is not a real language
18. Oral language: the same thing as a spoken language
19. Phoneme: the shortest unit of sound that can be recognized, like /k/ or /t/, phonemes are the building blocks of syllables and words
20. Pre-verbal stage: when babies and infants interact with their environment with babbling, jargon, or vocalizing instead of real words
21. Prelinguistic: the time before someone develops spoken language
22. Syllable: a unit of a word; for example there are three syllables in processor (pro-cess-or) and two in water (wa-ter)
23. Utterance: a continuous vocalization or phrase
24. Vocalization: any sound a person produces

Adult CI: Beginning Practice Listening Suggestions at Home

Simple Practice Suggestions at Home

Immediately after your activation get started learning to listen with your cochlear implant. 

Begin listening with a close friend or a family member who wants to be your Listening Coach:

www.davisandco.com

1: Follow along as your Listening Coach reads a passage in a book.

Ask your reader to stop at certain words, so you can speak the words out loud. After this exercise, have him/her randomly read any sentence in a paragraph, so you can guess which sentence it was.

2: Without relying on speech-reading, have your Listening Coach voice

            Names of people you know

            Simple sentences: "How are you?" or "Nice to meet you."

3: Listen to basic "read-along" children's books available on CDs at the library.

Work up to more challenging literature as your training progress.

4: Listen to public radio or sports radio.

Talk shows are a good source of practice because they often deal with current news or familiar topics – giving you clues about the gist of conversation.

Be sure to prompt your Listening Coach to –

"speak slowly and clearly...

 use short sentences...stay on topic, etc."

Knowledge and Skills Required for the Practice of Audiologic/Aural Rehabilitation

Official statement of the American Speech-Language-

Hearing Association (ASHA). 

Pediatric Auditory Habilitation

Click HERE to read the American Speech Language and Hearing Association's Document on the:

Knowledge and Skills Required for the Practice of Audiologic/Aural Rehabilitation, which was approved by the ASHA Legislative Council and is an official statement of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). 

The document was prepared by the Working Group on Audiologic Rehabilitation in response to a charge from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's Executive Board to update the Association's definition of and competencies for aural rehabilitation document.

Adult Auditory Rehabilitation 

Knowledge and Skills for Audiologists Providing AR Services

Basic Areas of Knowledge

Audiologists who provide AR services demonstrate knowledge in the basic areas that are the under-pinnings of communication sciences and disorders. These include the following:

1. General Knowledge
   1. General psychology; human growth and development; psychosocial behavior; cultural and linguistic diversity; biological, physical, and social sciences; mathematics; and qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.
2. Basic Communication Processes
   1. Anatomic and physiologic bases for the normal development and use of speech, language, and hearing (including anatomy, neurology, and physiology of speech, language, and hearing mechanisms);
   2. Physical bases and processes of the production and perception of speech and hearing (including acoustics or physics of sound, phonology, physiologic and acoustic phonetics, sensory perceptual processes, and psychoacoustics);
   3. Linguistic and psycholinguistic variables related to the normal development and use of speech, language, and hearing (including linguistics [historical, descriptive, sociolinguistics, sign language, second language usage], psychology of language, psycholinguistics, language and speech acquisition, verbal learning and verbal behavior, and gestural communication);
   4. Dynamics of interpersonal skills, communication effectiveness, and group therapy

Special Areas of Knowledge and Skills

Audiologists who provide AR have knowledge in the following special areas and demonstrate the itemized requisite skills in those areas:

• III. Auditory System Function and Disorders
  1. Identify, describe, and differentiate among disorders of auditory function (including disorders of the outer, middle, and inner ear; the vestibular system; the auditory nerve and the associated neural and central auditory system pathways and processes);
• IV. Developmental Status, Cognition, and Sensory Perception
  1. Provide for the administration of assessment measures in the client's preferred mode of communication;
  2. Verify adequate visual acuity for communication purposes;
  3. Identify the need and provide for assessment of cognitive skills, sensory perceptual and motor skills, developmental delays, academic achievement, and literacy;
  4. Determine the need for referral to other medical and nonmedical specialists for appropriate professional services;
  5. Provide for ongoing assessments of developmental progress.
• V. Audiologic Assessment Procedures
  1. Conduct interview and obtain case history;
  2. Perform otoscopic examinations and ensure that the external auditory canal is free of obstruction, including cerumen;
  3. Conduct and interpret behavioral, physiologic, or electrophysiologic evaluations of the peripheral and central auditory systems;
  4. Conduct and interpret assessments for auditory processing disorders;
  5. Administer and interpret standardized self-report measures of communication difficulties and of psychosocial and behavioral adjustment to auditory dysfunction;
  6. Identify the need for referral to medical and nonmedical specialists for appropriate professional services.
• VI. Speech and Language Assessment Procedures
  1. Identify the need for and perform screenings for effects of hearing impairment on speech and language;
  2. Describe the effects of hearing impairment on the development of semantic, syntactic, pragmatic, and phonologic aspects of communication, both in terms of comprehension and production;
  3. Provide for appropriate measures of speech and voice production;
  4. Provide for appropriate measures of language comprehension and production skills and/or alternate communication skills (e.g., signing);
  5. Administer and interpret appropriate measures of communication skills in auditory, visual, auditory-visual, and tactile modalities.
• VII. Evaluation and Management of Devices and Technologies for Individuals With Hearing Impairment (e.g., hearing aids, cochlear implants, middle ear implants, implantable hearing aids, tinnitus maskers, hearing assistive technologies, and other sensory prosthetic devices)
  1. Perform and interpret measures of electroacoustic characteristics of devices and technologies;
  2. Describe, perform, and interpret behavioral/psychophysical measures of performance with these devices and technologies;
  3. Conduct appropriate fittings with and adjustments of these devices and technologies;
  4. Monitor fitting of and adjustment to these devices and technologies to ensure comfort, safety, and device performance;
  5. Perform routine visual, listening, and electroacoustic checks of clients' hearing devices and sensory aids to troubleshoot common causes of malfunction;
  6. Evaluate and describe the effects of the use of devices and technologies on communication and psychosocial functioning;
  7. Plan and implement a program of orientation to these devices and technologies to ensure realistic expectations; to improve acceptance of, adjustment to, and benefit from these systems; and to enhance communication performance;
  8. Conduct routine assessments of adjustment to and effective use of amplification devices to ensure optimal communication function;
  9. Monitor outcomes to ensure professional accountability.
• VIII. Effects of Hearing Impairment on Functional Communication
  1. Identify the individual's situational expressive and receptive communication needs;
  2. Evaluate the individual's expressive and receptive communication performance;
  3. Identify environmental factors that affect the individual's situational communication needs and performance;
  4. Identify the effects of interpersonal relations on communication function.
• IX. Effects of Hearing Impairment on Psychosocial, Educational, and Occupational Functioning
  1. Describe and evaluate the impact of hearing impairment on psychosocial development and psychosocial functioning;
  2. Describe systems and methods of educational programming (e.g., mainstream, residential) and facilitate selection of appropriate educational options;
  3. Describe and evaluate the effects of hearing impairment on occupational status and performance (e.g., communication, localization, safety);
  4. Identify the effects of hearing problems on marital dyads, family dynamics, and other interpersonal communication functioning;
  5. Identify the need and provide for psychosocial, educational, family, and occupational/vocational counseling in relation to hearing impairment and subsequent communication difficulties;
  6. Provide assessment of family members' perception of and reactions to communication difficulties.
• X. AR Case Management
  1. Use effective interpersonal communication in interviewing and interacting with individuals with hearing impairment and their families;
  2. Describe client-centered, behavioral, cognitive, and integrative theories and methods of counseling and their relevance in AR;
  3. Provide appropriate individual and group adjustment counseling related to hearing loss for individuals with hearing impairment and their families;
  4. Provide auditory, visual, and auditory-visual communication training (e.g., speechreading, auditory training, listening skills) to enhance receptive communication;
  5. Provide training in effective communication strategies to individuals with hearing impairment, family members, and other relevant individuals
  6. Provide for appropriate expressive communication training
  7. Provide appropriate technological and counseling intervention to facilitate adjustment to tinnitus;
  8. Provide appropriate intervention for management of vestibular disorders;
  9. Develop and implement an intervention plan based on the individual's situational/environmental communication needs and performance and related adjustment difficulties;
  10. Develop and implement a system for measuring and monitoring outcomes and the appropriateness and efficacy of intervention.
• XI. Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Public Advocacy
  1. Collaborate effectively as part of multidisciplinary teams and communicate relevant information to allied professionals and other appropriate individuals;
  2. Plan and implement in-service and public-information programs for allied professionals and other interested individuals;
  3. Plan and implement parent-education programs concerning the management of hearing impairment and subsequent communication difficulties;
  4. Advocate implementation of public law in educational, occupational, and public settings;
  5. Make appropriate referrals to consumer-based organizations.
• XII. Hearing Conservation/Acoustic Environments
  1. Plan and implement programs for prevention of hearing impairment to promote identification and evaluation of individuals exposed to hazardous noise and periodic monitoring of communication performance and auditory abilities (e.g., speech recognition in noise, localization);
  2. Identify need for and provide appropriate hearing protection devices and noise abatement procedures;
  3. Monitor the effects of environmental influences, amplification, and sources of trauma on residual auditory function;
  4. Measure and evaluate environmental acoustic conditions and relate them to effects on communication performance and hearing protection.