The Listening Brain Podcast Guest - Me! October 2020

 
 

Have you listened to the podcast, The Listening Brain? If not, here is your chance. I was a guest in October 2020, so give a listen! I share my professional journey with all its amazing twists, turns, and God Winks or diving coincidences. The Listening Brain.

This podcast celebrates listening and speaking in the context of childhood hearing loss. Hosted by K. Todd Houston, Ph.D., a noted Listening and Spoken Language Specialist Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist, speech-language pathologist, and Professor who explores educational trends, new developments in technology, and advances in research.

Thank you K. Todd Houston, Ph.D. Co-Founder of the 3C Digital Media Network, LLC for inviting me to be your guest. Todd interviews professionals in the fields serving a child with hearing loss, and, most importantly, families who are supporting their children on this journey to listening and spoken language success. And, equally, as important, he hears from adults with hearing loss who will share their unique stories and experiences about growing up with deafness and how deafness is now being redefined for future generations.

You'll want to subscribe to hear all the episodes that focus on children with hearing loss who are learning to listen and use spoken language, their families & the professionals who serve them.

Role Playing For Self Advocacy - Hearing Loss

 
 

These Five Role Playing scenarios are tried and true activities I have used in my own practice for years. They are derived from true situations of actual kids.

Role Playing offer opportunities to make real-life connections that students face at school, at home, with peers and in their community. The scenarios help them understand the impact of their actions and reactions. They provide opportunities for kids to grapple with challenging situations and explore communication repair strategies within a supported environment. Self advocacy success requires knowledge, skills and importantly practice.

This resource focuses upon Coping Strategies including Take Charge strategies which lead to positive advocacy outcomes and Escape strategies that often lead to negative consequences.

There are Five Scenarios played in two parts.

 
 

Part One illustrates a communication breakdown due to the speaker, the topic, the environment with student using Escape or negative strategies. Talking Points follow with questions and prompts are provided for brainstorming and to lead a discussion.

Part Two is the scenario again with the new Take Charge or positive strategies Talking Points - prompts are provided for reflection and to lead a discussion on how did everything work out.

This is a Digital No-Prep or Planning with everything included. It can be easily used by parents at home, teachers and therapists both face to face and on tele-platforms.

Check out my other Self Advocacy activities for kids that are deaf and hard of hearing.

SELF ADVOCACY Tips For Communication Success (Free)

SELF ADVOCACY Sinister The Bad Listener

SELF ADVOCACY Scenarios - Turning Lemons Into Lemonade

SELF ADVOCACY Perk Up Your Ears (Ear-related sayings and idioms)

SELF ADVOCACY Listen & Draw Directions

A Retro ViewMaster Saves The Session

 
ViewMaster.jpg
 

Have you ever saved a session or re-engaged a child with a ViewMaster? It is a real attention-getter! You may use wind-up toys, play dough, stickers, puppets but nothing works like a ViewMaster!

The child looks through the ViewMaster while the parent, therapist or teacher fosters a conversation about the topic on the reel. It’s easy to get the excited child to narrate and talk about whatever they are viewing. There are themes like dinosaurs, marine life, robots, Dora The Explorer, Handy Manny, Discovery Kids, Disney and more. It is a perfect opportunity to build language through hearing alone while the listening, language and vocabulary targets are limitless!  

While most would consider this a vintage toy it is still available on Amazon. Parents love this retro toy and most remember having it as a child. 

Let me know if you give it a try!

Other listening and language activities and resources can be found in my Listen With Lynn™ shop.

The Secrets Beneath the Palm Tree by parent Angeliki Stamatopoulou-Pedersen

I am excited to introduce my guest blogger, Angeliki Stamatopoulou-Pedersen, a parent of a grown son with profound hearing loss who uses listening and spoken language.  Angeliki shares that, September is International Deaf Awareness Month! This September of. 2020 is not like every other year. This September of 2020 is GOING BACK or NOT GOING BACK to school month. There are global changes and different ways of approaching the current pandemic crisis. Fortunately, books can be used in the same ways as always. So can the internet.

Angeliki wrote The Secrets Beneath the Palm Tree, a book geared to address children that are deaf and hard of hearing. She shares the her story can bring joy to each child who encounters hearing loss at a young age, whether it’s their own or someone else’s. This book is veritable documentation on effective communication tactics; it also imparts information on hearing dogs, friendships, and much more. A lip-reading game is described in the book. Today, because of COVID-19 every one is required, in a group situation, to wear a mask. The game cannot be played with regular masks. Instead, a smart adaptation would be to use clear masks, a fun way for all children to understand their necessity.

 
 

A reflection from the past. I am the mother of a now-adult deaf son, diagnosed with a hearing loss at age three. Initially, he was aided with a bi-cross hearing aid. The very difficult diagnostic journey lasted two-and-a-half years. After that we were very lucky, we worked with several dedicated professionals in the field, and my son developed spoken language. At age 12, he suddenly lost his residual hearing overnight. Soon after, he got his cochlear implant. While I cherish all the miraculous technological advantages and the related science behind them, we all know the limitations of existing assistive hearing devices. Good communication tactics are therefore so essential.

For a long time, every September was a very stressful month for me, simply because my son was attending mainstream school and he would start a new year. How I wish I had a fun book like this, a book of hearing loss would have been most helpful, to introduce him and explain his hearing loss, to his class. That was when I conceptualized the theme of my book and the fact that we have to educate “hearing” children about deafness. It took me many years of hard work to bring it to fruition. By then, my son was already in college.

Today, I am happy to say that my book is published in two languages. My native language is Greek. Naturally, the book was first published in Greek. The English version came later. I have always loved children’s literature. That is how I learned English, by reading illustrated children’s books. As a doting grandmother, I continuously share my love of illustrated children’s books with my beloved grandkids and I am passionately involved with children’s literature in my retirement years. But I have to confess that my favorite books are the ones that have protagonists with hearing loss!

The Secrets Beneath the Palm Tree was released in February of 2019. Today it is available in paperback, hardcover and on Kindle. It is a rich story embedded with tips for children, educators, speech language pathologists, audiologists and others. It is a must to add to your library.

Thank you Anglelki for your heart, journey and words of wisdom. I am proud to share you and your son’s story with my readers and followers.