We took the kids to see a Star Wars exhibit at a nearby museum a year or so ago. We were surprised to find a section on cochlear implants. They had a display showing how the technology of star wars (droids, robots, etc) translated into everyday life-like prosthetics and implants. We took a picture of Landon in front of the CI display and then Garrett walked by it, Landon made it clear in no uncertain terms that Garrett did not have ears and told him no-those were his ears. Garrett the easy going chap he is, took it all in stride and walked away without the desired picture or additional fuss. 

In recent months, Landon has learned to do everything with his ears except change batteries. In the mornings, he normally does not like to wear them when he first wakes up. He will sit at the computer and play games or watch videos without his ears, but it will not take long before he goes finds them and ask for a battery change. Also, he verbalizes very well when he does not have them on. His volume and tone to tell us what he wants or needs is excellent. He still gets scared at night but I think that is as much his age as being deaf in the dark. He is slowly growing out of this issue. 

One thing that he does not like is for any of this brothers or sisters to touch his ears. Bella has the habit, as most 2 year olds, to grab at everything. After a few stern corrections of her by Landon, she has accepted that his ears are just not worth the trouble. At no time has he ever fussed at us for fixing or educating the curiosity seeker about the devices, but I feel that day will be coming. He is very proud that he can put his ears on or take them off as he sees fit. As he takes more responsibility for his CIs, it is natural to defer to his wishes in many cases, unless it is just time to go to bed. :-)

Well, it was a great holiday season, although my LSU Tigers football team did not fair so well in their last game. Regardless of the loss, the Seneca clan still has its Tiger spirit. The spring semester grind has begun with my final semester of classes before I embark on my generals, proposal and dissertation in the coming year. As with any endeavor of this nature, one always has a bit of trepidation but also anticipation of the good and bad things to come. But, before all that takes place, it will be time for another family vaction to Disney World; the kids favorite. I guess we really do try to Love Purple, Live Gold. 

I am proud that I have two manuscripts in review for publication at various venues. The first is a literature review on the effectiveness of the Community of Inquiry Framework created by Garrison and Vaught in 2001 out of Canada. The second is my work in m-Learning with mobile apps and their effect on student learning. I hope that I can get these two items published in the near future. Like with anything new in life, it may be a tough time to get something published as a first time author, but I will keep plugging away at it. If it does not look like it will work out, I will self publish the results on this site. Ultimately, I believe the work on m-Learning will be of great benefit to CI students, especially pre-lingual students. 

On another note, Landon and the kids are fully versed and accepting of the iPod Touch technology. They are immersed in a couple of games called Plants vs Zombies and Minecraft at the moment. If we allow them, they can spend hours building houses, planting plants and other task presented within the virtual environment. I cannot help but think that this preoccupation with all things technical could not help with vocabulary acquisition. Landon has certainly improve in that area with babbling conversations turning into proper word conversations. Although he is still behind someone of the same age and even his two year old sister, I can see the cognitive processes firing in his head as he tries to form the words to produce meaningful conversation. I am confident his exposure to all the technical tools has a helped, although those findings are 
anecdotal at best. 

My how time flies!! Five years ago today we were welcoming our 3rd son into the family....little did we know what the next five years were going to involve. Countless doctor appointments, tests, therapy sessions, one surgery, more doctor appointments, more therapy, a surprise addition to the family with Bella, more therapy, more doctor appointments....did I mention therapy? :) It's been a very busy five years...but we wouldn't change a thing. His speech has greatiy improved, but we are still working on his vocabulatry. Additionally, his pronuciation has greatly improved over the past six months.

In the coming months, we will spend most of our time working with Landon on developing his pronunciation of words. Hopefully, we can break him of the slurring which seems to be a result of bordom with his excercises.

I have just been informed that some apps are crashing in iOS 5. As I have just updated my systems to iOS 5, I was unaware of the issue, I expect the fix to be version 1.2 which will be released next week. Please be patient.  Also, I am working on rerecording some of the sounds with a male, female and child's voice which will be released in version 2.0 in the Jan of 2012.

For those who do not like the simple operation, please note it is designed for pre-lingual children. Conceptually, this app should develop a behavioral response of touch equals sound associated to image. The app is simply not designed for advanced functions or repeating or sequences. This may be a feature that is incorporated into future version of other apps in development, but at this time, it works as designed primarily for ages 2 to 6 and is used primarily by my wife and I to break the monotony of repeatedly asking Landon his Ling 6 sounds.

My usual routine this morning, wake-up, check email, LSU sports board and app downloads over night. With a major download, over 400 in a night, more than 5000 students now have access to assistive m-Learning technology. Thank you for continuing to support and fund my reasearch!