Introduction for my 4 year old CI user

[Champion]

hello everybody. I just discovered this wonderful website and am eager to connect with others.

My daughter Moira is 4 years old and was born with bilateral profound hearing loss. She was implanted in July 2018 and activated in August 2018. We live in Ontario, Canada, and I would love to be able to connect with others close to us.

She loves her CIs (Sonnet) and we also use ASL. She's starting kindergarten in September and I am feeling anxious about how she will handle it. If there are any other parents of implanted kids who would be willing to talk with me about their first school year i would appreciate it. 

Thanks all

[Mary Beth]

@Champion

Welcome to HearPeers!

let’s tag @Colleen Powell.  She is my friend who has a son with CIs.

[Colleen Powell]

Hey there!

thanks for tagging me Mary Beth! It sounds like Moira is in great hands. When my son, Liam, went to mainstream school in first grade I was so nervous, but he has done so great! I encourage you to be as involved as you can with the school- Liam has a team of teachers, speech therapist and hearing itinerant who I worked with to make sure he was on the right track. He always had an FM system and we made sure his classroom had curtains and other things to make it a better listening environment. Liam would work with his hearing itinerant to share with the class about his hearing loss, which I think helped everyone understand what was going on. 
 

The biggest adjustment for him, at first, was to the fatigue he experienced after a day of school. Liam had to work so much harder to hear at school and so he came home exhausted. We had to find quiet ways to decompress after school. He’s gotten better, but I know he’s still tired even now. 
 

liam is going to middle school next year, so I am right there with you, anxious about how he will do. Liam has always surpassed my expectations and I’m sure Moira will be the same!

 

good luck!