Yesterday, AJ decided to be "2" when he woke up from his nap. He screamed for about an hour. Nothing, I mean nothing would make him happy. He heard his own crying and yelling...and didn't like it. AT ALL. Towards the end of his tantrum he took his coil off for the first time ever. He realized that 1) HE WAS THE ONE MAKING THE NOISE 2) THIS THING IS WHAT MAKES ME HEAR. We placed it back on and watched for reaction. Again, he got mad as his crying got louder. We think he was crying more because he didn't like the sound of himself crying. We gave him a break from his CI for a few minutes. When we placed the coil back on Daddy took him outside to walk around on his shoulders (his favorite thing to do).
The boys went for ice cream shortly after their walk. Mommy had the whole house to herself for a whole half-hour. I typed AJ's IEP Parent Report-fun fun. We didn't switch programs yesterday and nothing outside the usual happened. So what brought this on? Hm.
Today, AJ had another speech appointment. He did remarkably well, this time turning to the "light boxes" in his SLP's room. We also use these in the sound booth as rewards for turning to a sound/noise. AJ needs to practice/learn how to turn. He was good at it in the booth before with his HA's, but that was over 7 months ago. He turned to the cymbals, clacker, drum, SLP's voice, clapping, and possible response to the tamborine. We were actually able to get him to turn to the light boxes. (He did not do this in the chair during activation-I think half of his issue was the height of the boxes vs. his chair) Jeremy and I had decided that I would turn AJ up to P4 while we were at speech today. He had no negative responses. Yay!
He had great eye contact with his SLP today, full of intent. He also grabbed her hands multiple times to push her hands together for "more". His SLP and I discussed what we've been seeing at home, including longer vocalizations and AJ talking back and forth with us (ooooooo, OOOOOOOOOO, ooooooooooo, OOOOOOO). When I turned around in the car yesterday to give him more of his snack, I said "more" (his coil was off-darn carseat) and he signed "More". SO.....we are thinking he definitely recognizes my facial expressions and what they mean, and he may also be reading my lips. We've been doing "physical nudging" to encourage him to consistently sign "more". We nudge his elbow and he brings his hands together. AJ is turning to our voices more often. He is standing up on his own again and walking instead of crawling.
When he got up from his nap today, he started screaming when I put his CI on again. What the? We tried to sooth and keep background noises to a minimum. When that did not seem to help, we again took it off, gave him a break, and put it back on. He was fine. So maybe he just needs a bit of time to adjust/wake up before we put it back on. He does not do this in the morning.
Tonight I played the piano for my son, which was an experience I will never forget. He enjoyed it and loved being up on the bench with me to pound the keys! He also did very well with signing "more" during his multiple courses of dinner tonight. He is doing so well...even though the crying post-nap freaked us out.
We're anxious for his audiogram on Friday to see where AJ's hearing with his CI. This may be the first sound booth experience where I won't have to wear earplugs.