With all the buzz about bilateral Cochlear Implants, I often feel that our bi-modal kids are forgotten about. Yes, bilateral hearing is best. Of course 2 ears is better than one. We've found over the past 3.5 years that Christian receives GREAT benefit from his aided ear (that measures severe on aided testing) and sometimes folks are surprised that we aren't pursuing a 2nd Cochlear Implant for him. Just yesterday at school he scored 37/49 correct using his aided ear alone in speech perception testing. That is pretty darn good. We know that his aided ear provides much of the enjoyment for his love of music. We know that it also has helped him with sound location and articulation. For now, a hearing aid is working. We'll always keep close tabs on that ear. Maximizing his aided ear is ALWAYS on the forefront of our minds, so when he came home yesterday with a Phonak Naida on his left ear, I couldn't help but be giddy with excitement.
I'll leave the ins and outs of exactly what the Naida does to the pros--check out the video below from Dr. Seewald, a leader in pediatric audiology. In Mommy terms, the Naida uses this amazing software called SoundRecover. It will take the high-frequency sounds that Christian has a hard time hearing with his aided ear and compress them into lower level frequencies, making them accessible and heard. This will help with his speech discrimination and production. Christian will use the demo provided by the school for a couple of weeks, we'll evaluate his progress and decide if we'll order one.
4 comments:
There was a bimodal kiddo at John Tracy using a Naida and it was AMAZING. He was hearing at 20dB across the board with his Naida ear (sound booth pure tones- not necessarily discrim), probably because of that compression feature. If we get new hearing aids, we'll probably go with Phonak (Naida if Nolan needs more power due to the conductive loss, or Nios Micros if he doesn't need as much power). I'm not very happy with our Unitrons- they won't give the programming software to audiologists who don't sell their aids, so you get stuck with one audi. Phonak is more universal (and has great technology)!
That's great they want to try Christian on Naida's. What aid does he currently have?(before the demo)
I want to trial Naida's since my hearing aid does not give me much hearing.
My son also is bimodal with a cool silver and black Naida on one ear and the black nucleus 5 on the other. He hears 20-30 db aided with his HA ear. 30db in the highs and 20db in the mid frequencies. No complaints here.
Hi
Our son, Jared(9) just got his Naida hearing aids on Monday. I have to say they are amazing. We can already tell the difference. He had Phonak for the past 4 years, while they were good, they did not give him the hearing that the Naida do.
We also have a 8 year old daughter, Allison who has bilateral CI's. She had her 1st one in Jan 2005 and her 2nd in April 2008.
Both Jared and Allison attend a typical elementary school and are doing great.
It is wonderful to live in the time when the technology is so amazing.
Feel free to check out our blog at krullfamily5.blogspot.com
I would love to add yours to my list if that is ok with you.
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