Lena's New Life

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loml

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In less than eighteen months with us, Lena has developed almost five years of receptive English language, according to standardized criteria for deaf and hard-of-hearing children (the criteria on the SKI-HI standardized language tests used in her public school are higher for hearing children, even if testing is in ASL). She arrived without even single words for things like eating, drinking, or going to the toilet, and now she can understand three- and four-step commands and follow long bedtime stories cued and read aloud to her word-for-word. There are gaps, of course, since she doesn�t have the experience a nearly six-year-old child typically has. But like most kindergartners she counts to twenty orally, recites the alphabet, and knows sounds for almost all the letters. She can "sound out" (via a combination of cues, voice and internal language) many three-letter words phonetically, has a good beginning vocabulary of sight-words, and understands that we read sentences from left to right. Expressively, she can cue-and-say things like �I want chocolate milk, please,� and although we would be hard pressed to understand her voice without the cues, her production of a wide array of speech sounds is improving week by week. Recently, and with a little help, she's begun to write short sentences of her own composition as well. With Cued Speech, she could easily have done this through the visual mode entirely, but now, with the cochlear implant, much of this can be prompted and accomplished through audition as well, if she chooses. She does seem to prefer audition for many simple tasks, since it is not always convenient to stop what she's doing to watch. (As for Dasha, her receptive and expressive language is very near age-appropriate, and we can't get her to stop talking. Interestingly, her beginning phonics skills are not as strong as Lena's. I believe this is because of Lena's skill with Cued Speech.)

Lena is in the second half of a regular, public school kindergarten curriculum, in a self-contained classroom of hard-of-hearing children learning to listen, lip-read, and speak. She is the only Cued Speech child in her class, and the only one with a cochlear implant. She has a Cued Speech transliterator who is with her wherever she goes at school, cueing what the teachers and other students say. Sometimes Lena makes use of the transliterator, when she does not understand the language through listening and lip-reading alone, but sometimes she is able to understand simple spoken exchanges without the transliterator. She seems to be intent on developing her auditory skills right now, and I am recently finding myself surprised at what she can understand, even when spoken in passing, or from another room. She also knows a several signs, and understands them as a method of communication separate from cueing. Soon, as part of an agreement between school districts, she will transfer to a program in a neighboring county, where the teachers and aids cue directly to the children. This school shares the same curriculum as her present program, but there will be other cueing children, as well a hearing children, for her peers. Many of the hearing children in this new school have learned to cue and do so frequently with their deaf classmates.

Will Lena continue to need the Cued Speech throughout her education? That remains to be seen. If she becomes a skilled enough listener and lip reader to understand her teachers when they use new vocabulary and explain unfamiliar topics, there may come a time when she doesn�t want to be different in the classroom any more. Some of the professionals working with her are predicting she will eventually "outgrow" Cued Speech. But on the other hand, it is likely that Cued Speech will always be easier for her to understand in the effortless way that hearing people understand spoken language, and that listening and lip reading only will continue to be more work, perhaps even exhausting for long periods of time with new material. I feel confident, however, that Lena will almost certainly be able to read at the highest level she could have achieved even had she been born hearing. Cued Speech children are typically voracious readers. As for myself, I will keep cueing to Lena until she tells me to stop.
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Lena's New Life
 
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loml,

Very interesting post. Making up five years in just 18 months confirms what many have said and experienced about the combination of cued speech and the cochlear implant.
Rick
 
rick48 said:
loml,

Very interesting post. Making up five years in just 18 months confirms what many have said and experienced about the combination of cued speech and the cochlear implant.
Rick
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Testing was based on lowered standards according to the testing applied. This does not indicate that she has gained the same langauge development of a hearing child. The criteria applied to the tests used allows for inherent delays, and is even lower than that applied to deaf students using ASL. Therefore, to state that she has made up 5 years worth of language delay in only 18 months is an extremely misleading conclusion.
 
One Bite at a Time

rick48 said:
loml,

Very interesting post. Making up five years in just 18 months confirms what many have said and experienced about the combination of cued speech and the cochlear implant.
Rick
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Rick - CS continues to make a difference in the lives of children and their families.
 
loml said:
Rick - CS continues to make in roads into the lives of children and their families that are searching for an early intervention system that meets their needs.
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I know, over the years I have heard so many positive things about CS and the people that I met who have utilized it are amazing.
 
rick48 said:
I know, over the years I have heard so many positive things about CS and the people that I met who have utilized it are amazing.
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Then why didn't you use it with your own child?
 
The web site was very interesting. Thanks for posting. I am very impressed with the parental involvement.
 
Thanks Ioml for that story.
Passed it on to my wife.... she'll be intreagued!

( Read it before, but nowaday's it's in a new light! ;-)
 
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In less than eighteen months with us, Lena has developed almost five years of receptive English language, according to standardized criteria for deaf and hard-of-hearing children (the criteria on the SKI-HI standardized language tests used in her public school are higher for hearing children, even if testing is in ASL).


I wonder what standardized critera is used for the deaf and hard of hearing children. It appears that the test expectations are lowered for deaf/hoh children. Why are they lowered?

Anyways, the girl is using signing, cued and spoken language. She is getting all of the tools and that is great!
 
shel90 said:
In less than eighteen months with us, Lena has developed almost five years of receptive English language, according to standardized criteria for deaf and hard-of-hearing children (the criteria on the SKI-HI standardized language tests used in her public school are higher for hearing children, even if testing is in ASL).


I wonder what standardized critera is used for the deaf and hard of hearing children. It appears that the test expectations are lowered for deaf/hoh children. Why are they lowered?

Anyways, the girl is using signing, cued and spoken language. She is getting all of the tools and that is great!
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Yep, the standardized criteria is tatamount to lowered expectations. Even if testing into the 100th percentile for deaf/hoh children, the language development does not match that of hearing children because they build in an automatic delay to the criteria. So, are the scores really reflective of what they are supposed to be measuring?
 
SKI-HI Language Development Scale This scale is developmentally ordered and contains a list of communication and language skills in varying intervals for different ages. Each age interval is represented by enough observable receptive and expressive language skills to obtain a good profile of a child's language ability

SKI-HI Language Development Scale

Available through: Hope Publishing, Inc 1856 North 1200 East, North Logan, UT 84341; phone/fax: (435) 245-2888; e-mail : hope@hopepubl.com; Web Site: HOPE Inc. Home and Family Oriented Program Essentials Online Store

This scale is developmentally ordered and contains a list of communication and language skills in varying intervals for different ages. Each age interval is represented by enough observable receptive and expressive language skills to obtain a good profile of a child's language ability.

I am trying to find about this automatic delay. Can you let me know where this info is so I can review that data.

I found this document that list all types and kinds of assesments.
http://nasdse.org/documents/AssessmentTools.pdf
 
jillio said:
Yep, the standardized criteria is tatamount to lowered expectations. Even if testing into the 100th percentile for deaf/hoh children, the language development does not match that of hearing children because they build in an automatic delay to the criteria. So, are the scores really reflective of what they are supposed to be measuring?
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I will have to ask the pychologist at my work about it. He does all the standardizing testings.

I am just glad to see the girl getting all the tools rather than just one tool only.
 
shel90 said:
I will have to ask the pychologist at my work about it. He does all the standardizing testings.

I am just glad to see the girl getting all the tools rather than just one tool only.
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Yes, be sure and give him the exact test, and any modifications made for deaf/hoh children. It is, as vallee said, a developmentally based test, but the way I understand it they are using lowered develpmental criteria for deaf/hoh children when compared to same age hearing peers. That is what I meant by a built in delay. Criteria are set by assuming that a deaf/hoh child will be developmentally behind a hearing child when matched for age.

I agree...glad to see she is getting all the tools.
 
vallee said:
SKI-HI Language Development Scale This scale is developmentally ordered and contains a list of communication and language skills in varying intervals for different ages. Each age interval is represented by enough observable receptive and expressive language skills to obtain a good profile of a child's language ability

SKI-HI Language Development Scale

Available through: Hope Publishing, Inc 1856 North 1200 East, North Logan, UT 84341; phone/fax: (435) 245-2888; e-mail : hope@hopepubl.com; Web Site: HOPE Inc. Home and Family Oriented Program Essentials Online Store

This scale is developmentally ordered and contains a list of communication and language skills in varying intervals for different ages. Each age interval is represented by enough observable receptive and expressive language skills to obtain a good profile of a child's language ability.

I am trying to find about this automatic delay. Can you let me know where this info is so I can review that data.

I found this document that list all types and kinds of assesments.
http://nasdse.org/documents/AssessmentTools.pdf
Click to expand...

See my reply to shel in post # 16. It explains a bit better what I meant by automatic delay. It would be the assumption that the base line for deaf/hoh children is below that of age matched hearing peers, and using that lowered baseline to set criteria.
 
jillio said:
See my reply to shel in post # 16. It explains a bit better what I meant by automatic delay. It would be the assumption that the base line for deaf/hoh children is below that of age matched hearing peers, and using that lowered baseline to set criteria.
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I have not given this test that is why I am asking. I wanted to review the data on this. I have not seen a test that lowers the baseline - it is usually age or grade based.

It would be interesting to see the whole battery of tests this child was given. I know they can't rely on one set of data to show development. If they are developing a data-driven approach then they would use the same test to evaluate the child againist herself. That is where they see the growth or regression. It also allows the teachers to plan instruction by knowing the areas that they child needs to improve on.
 
vallee said:
I have not given this test that is why I am asking. I wanted to review the data on this. I have not seen a test that lowers the baseline - it is usually age or grade based.

It would be interesting to see the whole battery of tests this child was given. I know they can't rely on one set of data to show development. If they are developing a data-driven approach then they would use the same test to evaluate the child againist herself. That is where they see the growth or regression. It also allows the teachers to plan instruction by knowing the areas that they child needs to improve on.
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Yes, it is age or grade based, but there is a normalized score that falls into the bell curve. That normalized score is determined from a baseline of what is normal for a given population, at a given age or grade level. This is what these tests are designed to do. Just as there are modifications to the standardized IQ tests for various populations to prevent bias in the testing, a test such as this uses modifications to standardize scores expected to fall within the normal range for a given population.

This is not a test given by a teacher, but by a psychologist. It is not an achievement test. Acheivement tests are used for curriculum planning.
 
jillio said:
Yes, it is age or grade based, but there is a normalized score that falls into the bell curve. That normalized score is determined from a baseline of what is normal for a given population, at a given age or grade level. This is what these tests are designed to do. Just as there are modifications to the standardized IQ tests for various populations to prevent bias in the testing, a test such as this uses modifications to standardize scores expected to fall within the normal range for a given population.

This is not a test given by a teacher, but by a psychologist. It is not an achievement test. Acheivement tests are used for curriculum planning.
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so is this test valid? It sounds like the majority of test I have used.

My school psychologist does not use this test. But she did say before gathering data she would give a nonverbal IQ test and achievment test for additional data. Use of just one test does not give all the valid data needed.
 
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