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Welcome to Charlie's World of Sound!
Like all of the mentors and friends we've met, we created this page to keep friends and family connected, and to make new friends by sharing the stories and experiences we encountered after we learned our son was deaf. We then explored our options and decided that cochlear implants would give Charlie the most opportunities for communication.
BR>Charlie was born after induction # 3 on 3/24/03 and was diagnosed on 5/8/03 with profound bilateral hearing loss. Genetic testing and background checks led us to the conclusion that we're not quite sure about the reason for his deafness.
Charlie's implant surgeries were performed in April, 2004 and November, 2005 by Dr. Barry Strasnick, at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters. With his second implant we saw a huge jump in his progress and expressive language. So now, 6 months post-activation of his second implant, we are very hopeful about his outcome. Thanks for hanging in to read all of this and I'm forever grateful for all of the love and support! Thanks to everyone who has helped us with kind words, thoughts and the many many prayers that brought hearing to an already perfect boy. Now he's love + 2 ears!
Journal
Thursday, February 21, 2008 7:59 AM CST Hello,
Well it's been about 6 months so I figured it was about that time. We've been so busy being amazed with our boy's progress that it's hard to pay attention to anything else. He has just exploded this year with his language, his patience and his socialization. He's answering questions appropriately now, his articulation is coming along well (when he's not being lazy talk boy :)) and he's just growing in so many ways. I'm such a proud Mama. Actually, in the past month I've graduated from Mama to Mommy, I guess he's hearing the kids at daycare call their moms that.
He's reading and spelling beautifully. His obsession continues to be roller coasters and he plays a computer game Roller Coaster Tycoon. He builds the coasters himself, along with the surrounding rides, and models them appropriately after actual theme parks that he sees on the Discovery Channel. He types in their names and asks us to spell them when he's unsure of how to spell it or doesn't have a book from which to copy the name.
He's doing great in his 2nd year at the Oral Preschool at VSDBMD-Hampton. His triennial evaluation meeting -- which is pretty much a 60,000 mile check up -- is next week. This determines his eligibility for special ed services for the next few years. I'm crossing my fingers that he'll be ready for a mainstream kindergarten with support. He'll definitely need his FM system. We won't know for sure until closer to the end of the school year. His teachers have worked so hard with him and we reinforce his learning at home and it's definitely paying off. We've come so far in the past two years, when I was truly worried about his progress. Now I am relaxing a bit and enjoying how well he's doing. It's so much easier to reinforce and teach when he's doing well than when we were so consumed with what he wasn't doing.
He's even starting to write pretty well also. Sloppy boy writing, but the valentine card he signed for Daddy this year was quite impressive. I put it in his experience book at school I was so proud.
Well, I should cruise before I put everyone to sleep. Take care!
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