Gavin can hear...

A good friend from high school (Brittany Johnson Jones) reminded me that there are those of you that I haven't communicated well with over the last year, and thus aren't necessarily aware of some of the amazing changes that have happened--especially for Gavin. As I'm sure you all know, Gavin was born with congential hearing loss considered to be profound to severe; with the diagnosis of LVA (Large Vestibular Aquaduct), he's almost guaranteed the loss of all available hearing by the time he's an adult. It took quite a while before we felt everything really was true and conclusive because with this kind of loss, he has good days and bad days where he can hear better or worse (he still often surprises us with what he understands when he's not wearing his "ear"). So he finally was fitted with hearing aids around the time he turned one.

We then moved to Logan for Jason's job and eventually decided (as it became more and more evident how much he was starting to fall behind) that we should pursue the route of trying to get Gavin a cochlear implant. It's a fairly difficult process with lots of various professionals putting in their two-bits, but a good process because we knew they wouldn't let this major surgery (which kills all natural hearing in that ear) happen unless it would be successful. Amazingly, the biggest hang-up that the specialists in Salt Lake had for not wanting us to do this was because of where we now lived--Logan has a reputation of being extremely sign language/deaf culture oriented and they were worried that we wouldn't have the support and services we needed for Gavin to be able to learn to hear and speak.

We pushed through anyway and on April 13, 2006, a month before Gavin's second birthday, he had the cochlear implant surgery in Salt Lake. After a month of healing, we went in to have him "hooked-up" (which is when they gave us the external parts of the machine, turned it on, and set it for his needs). There is an external processor that collects the sound, turns it into electrical impulses, and sends it to the headpiece that is magnetically attached to the internal electrode. The electrode goes into the cochlea and directly stimulates the hearing nerve, completely bypassing the faulty part of his ear. So since May 21, Gavin has been hearing. It didn't take long for him to adjust to his new "ear" and was making leaps and bounds beyond what we were told to expect. I guess he just decided he was tired of being held back! At the time of implant he was almost two, but was at a 10-month-old level of language and cognitive development. Within four months, he had jumped to a 16-18 month level. And now, at thirty months of age he's already up to a 24-30 month level! He's just about caught up!

We need to give some credit where it's due, though. Gavin's teacher for the deaf (from the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind), Jennifer Kite, has been there through it all and helped more than I thought possible. But even more then what she was able to provide (because she admitted that she is not a speech therapist), within a month of Gavin's surgery we heard that USU was going to start a oral-language focused preschool. By the time September came, they already had it up and running and Gavin had started going to "Sound Beginnings" toddler group. It is an incredible opportunity for Gavin to be going there--it's the best and only program of the like in the state of Utah. And miraculously, the off-chance that Jason found his dream job here and we moved here without even knowing such a program would come into existence, turned what was most worrisome about Gavin's implant (lack of services) into the greatest opportunity available in the state! We are most grateful to the "One in Charge" for that!

So to summarize, Gavin is talking up a storm. He understands just about everything you say and is quick to do what he wants anyway! We know that he knows at least a hundred words and can say approximately half of those, and the number of words that are understandable to the untrained ear is slowly increasing. We are so proud of all that he's accomplished and no longer have any fear that he will be limited in life, we fully expect him to be completely "mainstreamed" by the time he's in Kindergarten!