Well I made it over the hurdle of general examination. It is an interesting feeling to sit in the middle of a room and have six professors grill you for a solid two hours exploring the depths of your knowledge, especially finding that one weakness you dreaded they would find. I must say I have a great set of talent on my committee. Dr. Kennedy has work hard to get a good cross-section of skills to work on my project. As I lay awake tonight thinking of the dissertation project to come, I have spend much of this time reflecting on the conversation I had with my professors. 

The table was interestingly divided, just by chance, to have the qualitative researchers on the left and the quantitative researchers on the right, with my advisor at the head of the table and one professor who moved between the two sides with ease. I think all involved brought up great points and new areas to explore, but in many ways, I felt I could have answer all the questions better. 

For instance, one of my profs pointed out that she believed the participant I have chosen for a study may not be a prototypical CI student. In that she is right, but what I am beginning to wonder is, am I really looking at the student, or the prototypical exercises or lessons that CI students are exposed too. Is there larger meaning or things that can be discovered about AVT practice regardless of what type of CI student is involved? Not sure at this point, I need to think on that point more. 

Another interesting idea that came out of the session is their fascination with m-Learning apps. One professor just could not understand how I could design an app that can be interactive in nature. I was a bit puzzled by this idea given that I have made programs and apps do all sorts of crazy stuff over the years. I am a programmer, its what we do. But, I do believe I may not be the prototypical instructional technology student given my heavy computer science background. 

Well, I need to turn my mind off for the night; I hope I can find an acceptable project for my dissertation that really helps CI kids.

Landon is now five year old and we decided to spend some time at the Relay for Life. My sister coordinates the event with others in West Baton Rouge and it has become an annual tradition. The children love it there is games, slides, music, toys and good eats. It is a great even to donate time and money for cancer research. Hosted at a football complex, the booths are setup along the sidelines and endzone of the field. As I was walking accross the field with Landon, the music hit him. He started to shake, rattle and roll; on the ground. I could not get my phone out quick enough in that it hit me, my original masters project, the purpose of this site was to teach Landon music. Here he is dancing, rolling on the ground, and responding to my instructions in a very complex sound enviornment. I bet you wish you had moves like these:

Here is Landon at one the first time I plugged him into an iPod using a Radio Shack Y connector and his Nucleaus Freedoms. Now to consider that he is singing and dancing, its obvious that this technology education has helped a lot. Do not believe me, ask him to explain Plants versus Zombie to you. 

Currently, an option of care for profoundly hard-of-hearing individuals that qualify has been a unilateral CI (UCI), the implantation of one ear only saving the other ear for future medical advancements. A substantial body of research has demonstrated that pre-lingual hard-of-hearing children are able to develop significant speech production skills through the use of a single CI (Geers, 1997; Geers & Tobey, 1995; Miyamoto, Kirk, Robbins, Todd & Riley, 1996; Tobey & Geers, 1995; Tobey, Geers, Brenner, Altuna & Gabbert, 2003). For example, some of the advantages observed in a case study of a single CI included an increase in speech and eligibility, an increased receptor vocabulary, a decrease in production of non-words, and increased response to questions (Ertmer, Strong, & Sadagopan, 2003).

Although the advantages of a UCI greatly increase the ability of the student to obtain speech, the risks associated with unilateral hearing loss (UHL), either natural or through the use of a UCI, have been well documented in the literature. Specifically, students who experience a degree of UHL are at a higher risk for educational, speech–language, and social–emotional difficulties than that of their normal hearing (NH) peers. (Bess & Tharpe, 1984, 1986; English & Church, 1999; Oyler, Oyler & Martkin, 1988). UHL contributes to a significant risk for reading difficulties and as previously stated, studies have shown that high school graduates with hearing loss fall between the fourth and fifth grade reading level (Carney & Moeller, 1998; Traxler, 2000; Easterbrooks, et. al, 2008).  Peters noted in the article, Rational for Bilateral Cochlear Implants, that children experiencing UHL are 10 times more likely to fail a grade or need additional educational resource assistance and are twice as likely to exhibit behavior difficulties in the classroom (Peters, 2006). 

The case for bilateral cochlear implants has been made based on the concept of normal hearing that is binaural. In recent years the number of cochlear implants bilaterally implanted into children have significantly increased. As of October 2005, according to the review of three major implant manufacturers, there are approximately 2803 bilaterally implanted individuals worldwide (Peters, 2006).  Approximately, 58% or 1402, of these implanted individuals are children (Peters, 2006). The used of binaural CIs allow the implant user to more closely mimic normal hearing. The normal hearing brain uses rapid, real-time analysis of signals from two ears combined with data to hear. (Peters, 2006). A review of the limited literature on BCIs has shown advantages for many individuals in the areas of improve speech recognition, sound localization, and reduced head shadowing effect (Litovsky, Parkinson, Araroli, Peters, Lake, Johnstone, & Yu, 2004; Peters, 2006). 

Makes one begin to think that access to binural sound can present a significant advantage to students in comparison to those who only have access to sound unilaterally. The jury is still out on this one...

References

• Bess, F. H., & Tharpe, A. M., (1986). Case history data on unilaterally hearing impaired children. Ear and Hearing, 17 (1), 1 -11.
• Carney, A. E., & Moeller, M. P., (2003). Treatment efficacy: Hearing loss in children. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 41, S61-S84.
• Easterbrooks, S. R., Lederberg, A. R., Miller, E. M., Bergeron, J. P., & McDonald-Connor, C. (2008). Emergent literacy skills during early childhood in children with hearing loss: Strengths and weaknesses. The Volta Review, 108 (2), 91-114.
• English, K., & Church, G. (1999). Unilateral hearing loss in children: An update from the 1990s. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 30, 26-31.
• Ertmer, D. J., Strong, L. M., & Sadagopan, N. (2003). Beginning to communicate after cochlear implantation: oral language development in a young child. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 328-340.
• Geers, A. E., (1997). Comparing implants with hearing aids in profoundly deaf children. Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, 117, 150-154.
• Geers, A. E., Tobey, E. A. (1995). Longitudinal comparison of the benefits of cochlear implants and tactile aids in controlled educational settings. The Annals of Otology, Rhinology, & Laryngology, 166, 328S – 329S
• Litovsky, R. Y., Parkinson, A., Arcaroli, J., Peters, R., Lake, J., Johnston, P., & Yu, G. (2004). Bilateral cochlear implants in adults and children. Arch Otolaryngol Head and Neck Surg., 130, 648 – 655.
• Mitchell, R. E., & Karchmer, M. A. (2004). Chasing the mythical ten percent: Parental hearing status of deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States. Sign Language Studies, 4(2), 138-163.
• Miyamoto, R. T., Kirk, K. I., Robbins, A. M., Todd, S., & Riley, A. (1996). Speech perception and speech production skills of children with multichannel cochlear implants. Acta oto-Laryngologica, 116, 240-243.
• Nicholas, J. G. & Geers, A. E. (2007). Will they catch up? The role of age at cochlear implantation in the spoken language development of children with severe to profound hNicholas, J. G. & Geers, A. E. (2007). Will they catch up? The role of age at cochlear implantation in the spoken language development of children with severe to profound hearing loss. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 1048-1062.
• Oyler, R. F., Oyler, A. L. & Matkin, N. D. (1988). Unilateral hearing losses: Demographic and educational impact. Language, Speech Hearing Services in Schools, 19, 201-209.
• Peters, R. P. (2006). Rationale for Bilateral Cochlear Implantation in Children and Adults. Retrieved March 2006, from http://www.cochlearamericas.com/PDFs/bilateral_white_paper.pdf.
• Robbins, A. M., Kock, D. B., Osberger, M. J., Zimmerman-Phillips, S., Kishon-Rabin, L. (2004). Effect of age at cochlear implantation on auditory skill development in infants and toddlers. Archives of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, 130, 570 – 574.
• Tobey, E. A., & Geers, A. E. (1995). Speech production benefits of cochlear implants. Advances in Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, 50, 146-153.
• Tobey, E. A., Geers, A. E., Brenner, C. B., Altuna, D., & Gabbet, G. (2003). Factors associated with development of speech production skills in children by age five. Ear and Hearing, 24, 36S-45S.

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.