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Published Jan 24, 2024

5 Tips to Help Your Child With a Hearing Implant at School

School plays an important role in the life of your child. And it is important to provide them with all the support they need to flourish in this environment. Here are some tips to support your child with a cochlear implant as they navigate the exciting world of school.

• 1 Pre-Teaching Vocabulary
• 2 Using the Ling 6 Sound Test
• 3 Teaching Conversation Strategies
• 4 Monitoring Development
• 5 Practicing Skills at Home

1. Pre-Teaching Vocabulary

Ask your child’s teacher what themes or topics the class will be learning about this school term. It could be a particular book, geographical location, or historical event. Talk with your child about these topics so they begin to learn the key words that will be used in the classroom. Borrow books from the library or look at videos and pages on the internet together with your child to learn the key words for these topics. If your child knows and understands the key words, they will be more likely to follow along with discussions and lessons and be able to complete activities.

2. Using the Ling 6 Sound Test

Complete the Ling 6 Sound Test before school to make sure your child can hear well and is ready to learn. By ensuring your child’s cochlear implant is giving them access to all the sounds they need to hear, you can start the school day off on the right foot. The Ling 6 Sound Cards may help you structure this activity as you incorporate it into your child’s morning routine.

3. Teaching Conversation Strategies

When there is background noise, listening to the teacher or having conversations with classmates can be difficult, especially for children with hearing implants. Teach your child that it’s good to ask for something to be repeated when they are unsure what was said by asking, “ Can you say that again please? ” Or they can check that they heard something correctly by repeating what was said: “ Did you say … ? ” Modeling such requests and encouraging your child to use these strategies at home will help them use these phrases confidently in the classroom.

4. Monitoring Development

To monitor your child’s acquisition of communication skills or find out what skills your child should be developing next, download the app A Child’s Journey (for tablets and iPads only). This app lists developmental milestones in a range of domains for children ages 0 to 6 years old. When looking at this app, remember that your child’s hearing age is the time they have been listening with their hearing implant. Your child’s skills may be more aligned with their hearing age than with their chronological age.

5. Practicing Skills at Home

If you are looking for activities and games with a focus on listening and language skills to play with your child at home, download our Lesson Kits . These offer a range of stories and activities with a variety of themes (Animals, Transport, The Zoo, Nature, The Ocean, and many more) that you can use at home to teach many concepts. Here is one example of how you can use one of the Lesson Kit activities with your child.

With these tips, your child can feel confident and prepared to do well in school. Preparing at home can make a world of difference in the classroom. And it’s never too late to start trying out new strategies to make learning easier for your child.

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© MED-EL Medical Electronics. All rights reserved. The content on this website is for general informational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice. Contact your doctor or hearing specialist to learn what type of hearing solution suits your specific needs. Not all products, features, or indications are approved in all countries.

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January 24, 2024

When is Rondo 4 going to be available with direct Bluetooth capability?

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January 25, 2024

Hi Lina, thank you for reaching out. We cannot discuss future developments, but please rest assured you will find all our news and updates on our products on our social media channels as well as our website, so stay tuned! Kind regards, Gordana

March 29, 2024

My daughter 20 years old. She has been using cochlear device since last four years but her response is not working as well as. What do you think about and suggest that what should I do?

Hi Hussain, thanks for reaching out. We recommend checking out the tips and tricks on our blog: https://blog.medel.com/category/tips-tricks/tips-tricks-for-adults/ Please also get in touch with your local MED-EL team via https://www.medel.com/contact-med-el for further assistance s they might help your daughter with a new fitting of her audio processor. Kind regards, Gordana

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How Simon Heard About 9-Year-Old Journeyy Before His Shocking AGT Audition

The Judges always have their ear to the ground for new talent and that's just what they got with singer Jounreyy.

With a soulful voice that belies his young age, Journeyy joined the ranks of “cool kids” who are blowing away the Judges in Season 19 of America’s Got Talent . The musically gifted 9-year-old played piano and sang an original tune, flooring the audience with his emotional intensity and poetic lyrics. Surprisingly, Simon Cowell revealed that just a few days before the performance, he had heard of Journeyy. How did this shy Jersey City child — who admitted to a bit of stage fright before the show — get on the radar of AGT ?

How to Watch

Watch America’s Got Talent Tuesdays at 8/7c on NBC and next day on Peacock . 

RELATED:  America's Got Talent Just Received 2 Emmy Nominations (DETAILS)

As a Judge, you always need your ear to the ground, and Simon explained that his friends sometimes give him the best tips. This time, his good pal, LeRoy Clark, put the bug in his ear.

“Over the years with this show, friends will spot someone online, and they’ll say, you gotta see this person. A very good friend of mine, sitting over there, his name is Leroy. He said a couple of days ago, ‘You gotta see this video, ‘and it was you,’” Simon told the young performer on stage.

Turns out, great minds think alike, and AGT ’s production team had already found Journeyy. The up-and-comer said he loves singing covers, and his version of Oceans by Hillsong United quickly racked up views and glowing praise when he recently posted it on TikTok.

What song did Journeyy Sing on America’s Got Talent ?

After perfecting his style by singing covers for the past few years, Journeyy took the next step and performed an original song that he wrote himself, titled “Paradise.”

“I just didn’t expect that me recording videos at my house would lead to me being here right now. When I grow up, I want to be a pop singer,” he said in a backstage interview, adding that coming to Los Angeles for the audition was the first time he’d ever been on a plane.

The 9-year-old was nervous before the show, accepting a glass of water and a high-five from “favorite” Judge, Simon, before he began. But all that melted away as he struck the first note on the piano and sang:

You roll the dice

Now you’re on thin ice

Oh, here, the bugs don’t bite

Automatic lullabies

Purple clouds in the sky

Welcome to my paradise

What did the Judges say about Journeyy?

Cowell’s pals have impeccable taste, and the judges heaped huge praise on the young musical talent. “I love hearing people write their own material. It’s a glimpse into who you really are. And I really like you,” Cowell told Journeyy. 

“Your parents must be super proud of you,” noted Heidi Klum . Meanwhile, Journeyy’s parents and sister stood in the wings, wiping tears away and nodding yes! “I’m proud of you. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Very well done, you have a beautiful voice,” she added.

Why Sofia Thinks “Fearless” Ahren Belisle Could Be the First Stand-Up to Win AGT

Sophia Vergara did not hold back and stated, “I love you,” prompting a giant grin from Journeyy. “I think this season we have so many cool kids. Super cool kids, you’re one of them,” she enthused. Howie Mandell joked that he was once “nine years old for almost a year,” but his assessment of the performance was dead serious: “You are amazing,” he said.

Whenever Cowell says, “Things are gonna happen for you. I can feel it,” we wonder if he has a crystal ball hidden behind the Judge’s table because he’s pretty much right. “You are somebody who has a God-given talent. And it’s rare.”

Catch up on America's Got Talent on Peacock .

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Jennifer Aniston "cannot believe" JD Vance's “childless cat ladies" comment

The "friends" actress has talked at length about her journey with ivf and pregnancy rumors, by nardos haile.

Jennifer Aniston  is hitting back at Sen. JD Vance over his derogatory comments about “childless cat ladies."

In a 2022 speech,  Donald Trump 's vice presidential pick said that the Democratic party is run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made,” Variety reported.

He continued to mention Vice President Kamala Harris , Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , saying, “The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?"

The "Friends" actor responded to the comments in an Instagram story, stating, “I truly cannot believe this is coming from a potential VP of the United States."

“All I can say is . . . Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too,” she said.

In the past, Aniston has at length spoken about her struggles to conceive children with IVF and her frustrations around speculation about pregnancy rumors. Vance has voted against the Right to IVF Act, which aims to protect access to IVF services nationwide. He also opposes abortion rights and praised the Supreme Court's decision to repeal Roe v. Wade.

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Published May 11, 2022

Introducing: The Building Blocks of Speech

How can I know whether a child hears a sound well enough to identify it? Which speech sounds do children typically master earliest following implantation? Is it ‘normal’ for a three-year-old to drop the final consonants in words?

The Building Blocks of Speech is a friendly ready-reference tool that can help answer questions like these with evidence-based literature from the fields of speech acoustics and speech development. In this post, we’ll share a brief tutorial on how to use Building Blocks of Speech to analyze the auditory discrimination, articulation, and phonology skills of children with hearing loss.

Speech Acoustics

Speech is a complex acoustic signal; and auditorily, one feature we rely on to recognize individual phonemes is the resonant formant profile. If a formant could be compared to playing an individual key on the piano, then a speech sound would resemble playing a chord, with each formant representing a single note.

Actually, a speech formant is not a pure tone at all but rather a band of acoustic energy that reflects a peak in resonance. In other words, the speech formant represents a frequency range where the resonance of air in the vocal tract is higher or amplified .

Table 1: Average formant values of English vowels for female and male voices

The first and second formants, F 1 and F 2 respectively, are helpful with identifying vowels. Table 1 displays the average formant values for 12 standard English vowels. To detect a speech sound, we must hear at least one formant; to identify a speech sound, we must distinguish multiple formants.

To determine whether an individual has sufficient auditory access to recognize a vowel sound, their most recent audiogram (e.g., aided or implant thresholds, if wearing hearing technology) is compared with the formant information which describes a particular vowel. The audiogram in Figure 1 displays the unaided thresholds for both ears as well as the first and second formants for vowels /u/ and /i/.

Figure 1: Example audiogram—Behavioral bone conduction thresholds for left (<) and right (>) ears. Formants for /u/ and /i/ in green (F1) and red (F2).

This audiogram would suggest that an individual could detect F 1 for both /u/ and /i/ using that acoustic information alone. They might also be able to identify /u/ given that its F 2 should also be audible in quiet. However, without improved auditory thresholds for sounds above 1000 Hz, it unlikely that they would identify /i/, even in a quiet setting, because they cannot hear its F 2. They may misidentify this sound, confusing it with others that share similar first formants like /u/.

Consonant analysis can occur in much the same way. For example, if a child substitutes /h/ for /ʃ/ (‘sh’) during the Ling 6 Sound Test , could this error be the result of a misperception?

Figure 2: Example audiogram—Behavioral CI thresholds. Formants for /h/ and /ʃ/ in green and red.

Imagine the audiogram shown in Figure 2 reflects their most recent audiogram. Here the formant values of both sounds are displayed and imply that in a quiet setting the individual would have access to both sounds. If further assessment supports this indication, then we might conclude that this error is related to their speech production skills rather their speech perception ability and investigate that further.

It is important to note that auditory thresholds describe whether an individual can detect a sound at a specific frequency 50% of the time, usually in a quiet sound-treated setting. When comparing audiograms to formants, keep in mind that any impressions which could be gathered from formant analysis should be validated by actual performance in both a therapeutic setting as well with audiometric speech perception testing.

Speech Development

Figure 3: Acquisition of English consonants from birth to six years. The color of each block signifies the age when approximately 90% of typically developing children have acquired the sound shown

Across major language groups, most children can accurately produce the phonemes of their native tongue by 5 years of age.[3] Figure 3 illustrates the age of acquisition for English consonants between the ages of birth to six years. When assessing progress, the time during which a child has had access to spoken language should be considered.

For those with typical hearing, this is represented by their actual age; for those who rely on hearing technology, it will depend on the duration and quality of their device use.  For instance, a four-year-old child with typical hearing might be expected to produce the phoneme /z/ accurately in speech; however, a child of the same age who has been listening with a cochlear implant for just 6 months would not.

Early childhood talk is characterized by developmental speech patterns–more commonly known as phonological processes–where young speakers may, for example, repeat sounds or syllables in words (e.g., baba for bottle), drop sounds from word endings (e.g., ‘cu’ for ‘cup’), or replace sounds with others (e.g., tun for sun). These patterns fade from speech over time as children mature.

Figure 4: Developmental phonological patterns commonly observed in children with hearing loss

The chart in Figure 4 displays the phonological patterns observed in typically developing children that are most persistent among children with hearing loss. It also indicates the approximate ages when they are eliminated from typically developing speech.

Table 2: A partial speech sample revealing weak syllable deletion, stopping, and cluster reduction.

When analyzing developing speech, it is helpful to identify these patterns so that priorities for intervention may be set. Consider the short speech sample (Table 2) taken during a therapy session with a four-year-old cochlear implant recipient who has worn their device consistently since its activation 2.5 years ago. Several typical processes, such as weak syllable deletion, stopping, and cluster reduction, are still present in the child’s speech. They also use glottal replacement, which is an atypical, or non-developmental, speech pattern that typically developing children do not generally use at any stage.

From a cursory analysis of this sample, several recommendations could be made. First, a larger speech sample of at least 75 tokens is advised to note any other phonological patterns in their speech and to confirm that the child already has a repertoire of early developing vowels and consonants appropriate to their hearing.[4]

We would then want to establish that the child has auditory access to all sounds produced in error. This could be completed using the formant analysis described above. Should our larger sample provide no additional findings, we would then address the phonological processes that are the most immature and have the greatest impact on overall intelligibility.

In the example above, our four-year-old is relatively advanced given a hearing age of 2.5 years although their speech is still delayed compared to typical peers. Majority of four-year old English speakers do not omit unstressed syllables from words or use glottal substitution.  These speech behaviors have the greatest impact on speech intelligibility and could be selected for immediate intervention.

Acoustic and developmental speech information is undoubtedly useful for guiding clinical decisions for children with hearing loss. The Building Blocks of Speech combines all the reference material presented here, including vowel and consonants formant tables along with charts for sound acquisition and phonological development.

The Building Blocks of Speech does not replace the need for formal standard assessments conducted in audiology or therapy clinics. Instead, it can alert interventionists to the need for further evaluation. It’s a clinical tool that aural habilitation or hearing implant professionals can reach for whenever they need to quickly analyze the emerging speech perception and production skills of the children with hearing loss that they serve.

Download the  Building Blocks of Speech

The Building Blocks of Speech poster is available as a free download in English from MED-EL Rehabilitation .

Other Speech Therapy & Language Development Resources

For more on childhood language development, check out our blog article introducing the tool, A Child’s Journey Developmental Milestones.

Rehabilitation Podcast Series from MED-EL

If you’re interested in more free and readily available MED-EL resources that rehabilitation professionals can use, Aneesha Pretto offers an overview of our materials to assess and monitor the progress of adolescent and adult hearing implant recipients in our recent podcast series.

Aneesha also reviews some key considerations for counselling and developing a rehabilitation program for hearing implant recipients with SSD.

All that and more can be found at:  https://medel.libsyn.com/category/Rehabilitation

Special thanks to Aneesha Pretto, Advanced Rehabilitation Manager at MED-EL, for writing and contributing this article.

• Hillenbrand, J., Getty, L. A., Clark, M. J., & Wheeler, K. (1995). Acoustic characteristics of American English vowels. The Journal of the Acoustical society of America ,  97 (5), 3099-3111. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.411872
• Lee, S., Potamianos, A., & Narayanan, S. (1999). Acoustics of children’s speech: Developmental changes of temporal and spectral parameters. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ,  105 (3), 1455-1468. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.426686
• McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology ,  27 (4), 1546-1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100
• Wren, Y., Titterington, J., & White, P. (2020). How many words make a sample? Determining the minimum number of word tokens needed in connected speech samples for child speech assessment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics , 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2020.1827458

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The content on this website is for general informational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice. Please contact your doctor or hearing specialist to learn what type of hearing solution is suitable for your specific needs. Not all products, features, or indications shown are approved in all countries.

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Comedian Marlon Wayans Shares His Oldest Child Is Transgender

Marlon wayans has shared his oldest child, kai, is transgender, and plans to discuss his journey as a parent in an upcoming stand-up special..

Marlon Wayans is providing insight into his family.   The comedian recently shared his eldest child Kai , 23, is transgender, opening up about his experience as a parent.

"I have a daughter that transitioned into a son," he said during a Nov. 10 appearance on The Breakfast Club . "My daughter Amai is now Kai."

As the Wayans Bros. star explained, he plans to expand on their journey as a family in an upcoming comedy special, stating that the change was difficult to accept at first.

"I talk about the transition—not about their transition, but about my transition as a parent, going from ignorance and denial to complete unconditional love and acceptance," he said. "I think there's a lot of parents out there that need to have that message, and I know I'm dealing with it. It was a very painful situation for me."

Marlon—who shares kids Kai and Shawn , 21, with ex Angelica Zachary —also noted that Kai, who goes by they/them pronouns, knows their dad loves them and that they're happy.

"As a parent, I just want my kids to be free," Marlon said. "I want them to be free in spirit, free in thought, free to be themselves. The more you know yourself, the more you can govern yourself. The more you live your truth, the happier your existence."

And the comedian is determined to have that happiness to begin at home.

"If they can't get that in the household with their father and their mother, how the f--k do I send them out into the world with that kind of confidence?" he explained. "I'm just so proud of them being them."

Earlier this year, the 51-year-old shared a heartfelt shoutout to Kai on their birthday , expressing gratitude for their relationship.

"I've always asked people to love me unconditionally, thank you for teaching me what that really means," he captioned a May Instagram photo of himself kissing Kai on the cheek. "Be you! Your best you! You're the gift and I'm wrapping paper… love love love you for life."

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They wanted to foster a child. Overnight, they got 3: ‘Can we do this?’

“These kids needed a place to live, and they needed to be together,” said PJ McKay, who documents his fatherhood journey with his husband.

PJ and Thomas McKay always wanted to become parents.

“We weighed all of our options and looked into surrogacy and private adoption, and we did lots of Zoom meetings with different surrogacy agencies,” said Thomas, 33, who married his husband, PJ McKay in 2015.

After months of research, he and PJ, 38, — who live in the small town of Cleveland, Tenn. — kept coming back to one option.

“Becoming foster parents seemed like something we should do,” Thomas said, explaining they learned there were 368,000 children nationwide awaiting adoption in foster homes.

Hoping to welcome in a foster child, he and PJ took foster care classes in 2019 and became licensed to care for children in need. Soon, as they were childproofing their home, they received an unexpected text.

Instead of taking in one child, would they be interested in three?

And could they take them the following day? Siblings aged 4, 2 1/2 and 18 months were in need of a home.

“We looked at each other and wondered, ‘Can we do this?’” Thomas said.

They discussed their options.

“We talked about it and decided we could be open to whatever came our way,’” said PJ. “These kids needed a place to live, and they needed to be together.”

With help from a local adoption and foster care charity , the couple scrambled that night to gather car seats, clothing and toys, and they put together a crib for the toddler.

The children arrived on their doorstep the next day with nothing except the clothes on their backs, Thomas recalled.

“They’d come from a chaotic home where there was drug use,” he said. “Due to neglect, they were a little delayed, and all three kids were in diapers.”

He said he had never changed a diaper before, but he learned quickly, and he and PJ soon settled into a routine of bath time, story time and setting five places at the table.

On Aug. 31, 2021, the couple officially adopted the kids: Allan, now 9, Riah, 7, and Anna, 6.

This year on July 11, the McKays posted an emotional video on their Instagram page in celebration of the first day they met their children five years ago.

“Five years ago today, our children came to live with us in our first foster care placement,” they said in the video. “We gave them welcome gifts and showed them around the house [and] we introduced them to the pets and walked them upstairs to show them their new bedrooms that were filled with new clothes and toys.”

“We all took a walk to the park, and we were completely smitten with these three children we didn’t even know before today,” the McKays continued on the video, saying that for the first time, they made dinner for people other than themselves that night.

They ended with images of the siblings happily sleeping in their new beds.

PJ and Thomas said they were stunned when the post received more than 760,000 likes and 15,000 comments from strangers inspired by their journey to become parents.

“In a week when the world feels bleak, this was a beautiful spirit-lifter. You have a beautiful family,” one person wrote.

“I’m literally weeping! There are still good people out there and LOVE will always win,” another follower commented.

“Congrats on your beautiful family! I’m also adopted by a gay couple,” a third person wrote. “My moms would be happy to see so many gay couples having the opportunity they’ve always deserved.”

The McKays were overwhelmed with gratitude.

“Family takes all shapes and sizes — that’s what we wanted to drive home,” Thomas said. “When we were each growing up, we’d always thought it would be reassuring to see a family like ours.”

He and PJ were both born and raised in Cleveland, which has a population of about 48,000. They met through friends 15 years ago and started dating in 2010.

Even before they married five years later, they’d had long conversations about raising a family of their own, Thomas said.

“We’re super close with our own families, so it was always something we pictured ourselves doing together,” he said. “We were picking out kids’ names two weeks into dating.”

The couple renovated the house Thomas grew up in, hoping that one day it would be filled with happy chaos, said PJ, who works with Thomas as a home renovator and social media influencer.

When their family size tripled overnight, they decided to start a blog about their experience and document their parenthood adventures on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube , where they now have about 1.3 million followers combined. Topics have included how to cut a daughter’s long hair , the perfect kids’ pajamas and celebrating the last day of school .

They also posted about the emotional experience of not having the kids for three months when biological relatives decided they wanted custody of the children several weeks after they’d been placed in foster care.

“We were devastated,” Thomas said. “A week later, we emailed them and offered to be babysitters for the kids if they ever needed someone to watch them, and pretty soon, they were with us half the time.”

The relatives — a grandmother and aunt — eventually decided the kids would be better off living with the McKays, he said.

“We were so happy to be a family again,” PJ said. “That was a really hard time.”

Last Mother’s Day, he and Thomas shared how Riah’s first-grade teacher helped him to create inclusive cards , substituting the word “mom” with “dad,” and making sure each father got one.

“She and the other teachers always find ways to include our kids,” PJ said. “We love our school community and we’re really thankful for their love and acceptance.”

After five years with their two dads, Allan, Riah and Anna are now thriving, Thomas said.

Allan loves to climb trees and read books about sharks, while Riah enjoys helping out around the house and getting the trash ready on garbage day, he said.

Anna, the only girl in the house, is quick and smart, and as the youngest, she tries to get away with everything, PJ said.

“It’s crazy what a little structure and routine will do,” Thomas said. “Before they came here, they were used to sleeping all day, staying up all night and eating whatever they wanted. They were craving a schedule and rhythm.”

That schedule now includes a 7:30 p.m. bedtime, he said.

“Going to sleep is never an issue — everyone is exhausted at the end of the day,” he said. “But we’ve never been so happy.”

“I can’t imagine now what our lives would be like without our kids,” PJ said. “I’m living the dream I had for years, and it’s way better than I ever imagined it would be.”