Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3...

Every three months, we travel to Children's hospital to have Luke's cochlear implant map checked as well as to participate in a study for Advanced Bionics implants. We are happy to do so, but know that it will always be a long visit. Today was no different, except for the fact that Luke was actually participating and really doing a great job!!! Since the whole process isn't so stressful for us anymore (we are no longer thinking, "can he hear that" as his speech and language skills are developing so nicely!) I decided to bring my camera!!!

Here Dan and Luke are playing in the waiting room...of course Big Penguin accompanied us (but notice NO BINKIE!)
Our first stop on the marathon visit was to the booth to check Luke's implant. He responded to speech at 25 dB so he is right where he should be (although we went in about 2 hours later and he did SO much better...they think he had warmed up on the second go round, but that was just to check his hearing aid, so they couldn't count any responses for the implant!) Anyhow, they turned everything up just a bit on his implant AND his hearing aid!

Daddy and Luke pose for a picture after all the official testing was done. Luke typically sits on one of our laps (mine today!) but when we went in the second time to check the hearing aid, he actually sat on the chair by himself and I stood outside with the other audiologist who runs all the computers! What a big boy we have!!!
Once the booth testing was done, we headed into the cochlear implant office for a major testing session. Since the SLP for the team is on a maternity leave, Ruth, the researcher had the task of giving all the tests! Luke honestly sat in this chair all by himself, without complaint and FOCUSED for about an hour and a half!

Here he is pointing to pictures of "washing," "running," and "eating" and he got them all right - a 3 year old task! :)
Another portion of the testing was listening and repeating words he heard Ruth say! Some of the words were obviously words he didn't know..."CHINA" and others were words he definitely knew, "more, hello, daddy." He rocked this task too! He was so cute, he would hold a little bead against his cheek, Ruth would provide the stimulus word and Luke would say the word and put it on the pegs!!! I was amazed as some of my 5 year olds can't sit this long for a task, and he is only 2, people!!!
After all the testing in the office, as I mentioned above, we headed back into the booth to check his hearing aid. All is well there too, so no change in his hearing (yeah!). The last thing on the team's "to do" list today was to make a new earmold for his hearing aid. This involves putting a substance into Luke's ear that is like a pink silly puddy, waiting for it to harden and then pulling it out and voila, instant ear mold impression. Then, for the first time, the audiologist, Jericha asks if we want Luke to pick out his ear mold..."sure" I say, until he picks out a silver, sparkly one! "WHAT?" Since Luke won't remember what he picked (or at least won't object!) we quickly asked Jericha to choose another one similar to that one, but a bit more "masculine" and so we ended up deciding on a clear earmold with red, white and blue stars floating inside it! We figured this would be good with Memorial Day and July 4th on the horizon!!!

Here Luke smiles at Jericha as we are waiting for the pink puddy to dry in his ear!
Because today's appointment was at 2, we kept him home from CID as that class runs from 9 - 12 and always wipes him out - definitely a good decision on our part as this testing session was really a long one and involved his complete and total focus - which he provided! We aren't due back until July! I can't wait to see all the progress he will make in the coming months!!!