day 14, our last full day


I can't believe we're here already - the last full day. We've been kind of trying to prepare Lucas for going home, but it's been pretty tough on me. At school today, I saw that they made a poster with a car and an airplane going towards a house, then each of the kids put their picture next to which way they're getting home. Lucas talked about going on a plane when I picked him up, so he at least knows something is up. 

This morning we had a session on phonological speech levels and how to give optimal conditions for carryover of speech skills. We were encouraged to stay positive (not: no, you're saying that wrong, but rather: listen, mine's different) when correcting words. Also a great way to correct words and put them back into the auditory loop is just by repeating them correctly in a meaningful context.

We had our last small group support group meeting. 

We ate lunch for the last time in the sunrise courtyard with our blogging buddies. Then we met with Lucas's SLT to review his testing results and get a copy of a draft report. The report looks amazing, and is very detailed. I can't wait to get the final copy in a few weeks!


This afternoon's session was on supporting siblings & family relationships. Although we don't have a sibling for Lucas (yet), it was interesting to learn about some of the difficulties that typically developing kids have when they are the sibling to a special needs brother or sister. I will keep my notes handy for the future. We also got some suggestions on children's books about kids with CIs and hearing loss.

Our last session (ever... sigh) was on cognition. The classroom teacher who presented it did a really great job of giving concrete examples and showing a video of her class to illustrate her points. She mentioned the scary statistic that if children don't develop a language system (oral or sign) by age 5, they will likely have cognitive impairments. 

We ran some errands after school, and then spend the rest of the evening on the lawn with the families. Everyone stayed out later than usual, soaking in our last evening together. I won't be wearing any makeup tomorrow, because I'm anticipating a lot of tears.