a glimpse

another pic from the Please Touch Museum last week...

I believe that I've gotten a glimpse, yes I have. A glimpse of what Lucas is hearing with his new ear. One month and one week after activation, Lucas is beginning to show us glimpses of his sound discrimination. His willingness to listen with his new ear alone has increased. His overall interest of wearing them both together is improving too.

On Wednesday at speech therapy, he worked a little for his amazing speech therapist with his new ear alone. He was reluctant but compliant. He showed some glimpses of discrimination with some word-sound recognition. I'm really happy that he's willing to work for her. Love her.

Nate and I have both observed Lucas playing around with his magnets to see exactly what he can hear. He will temporarily remove the magnet of a his old ear, just for a few seconds, while his eyes pause in a contemplative gaze. He's testing it out. I love to catch him doing it. I always pretend like I didn't notice.

It was recommended that we pick a favorite book of Lucas's, and try to read it with his new ear alone. Because he's so familiar with the book, the brain is more likely to process that auditory information because the pathways have already been created by the book. I chose one of my all time favorites, Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. I love the rhythm and cadence of the book, the repetition, and the overall silliness of it. Lucas likes it too, but it's my favorite (as he would say). I've been trying all week to read this book to him with his left ear alone. The first couple of nights he chose to go to bed without any more books at all, instead of listening with his new ear. That's how much he didn't want to wear that ear alone. Then we compromised, and he pops off his magnet long enough for me to read that page, then he puts it back on, and we repeat. That way he has control over what he's hearing. It's not my first choice, but I'll take it, definitely.

Tonight, Lucas let me do some Lings with his new ear. Again, he just popped his magnet off long enough to hear my sound, then put it back on. I'm super happy to report that he was accurately identifying ahhh, eeee, oooh and sssss. He thought mmmm was aaaaah, and shhhhh was ssssss. Although my hand was in standard AVT position so that he couldn't see my mouth, he didn't even look in my direction half the time. I was really quite excited tonight... and hopeful.

Tonight I was given a glimpse of the magic his brain is doing, little by little. It really is amazing and downright marvelous the way it all works. It's really intriguing to watch the emergence of sound discrimination. We're going to get there... and I've gotten a little taste of it.