Resource List: Keeping Hearing Aids on Young Children...

It's surely no surprise that keeping hearing aids (HA) and/or cochlear implant (CI) on little ones is a near impossible feat...

According to research reported by Anderson & Madell (2014), only about 10% of children achieve full time hearing aid wear (defined as 12 hours/day) & 40% of children wear their hearing aids 4 hours or less per day!! These numbers make me want to rip my hair out... if the kids aren't wearing their equipment, then they aren't hearing ... and if they aren't hearing then how will they ever to listen & speak? Figuring out how to keep the hearing equipment on little ones is an ongoing struggle and continues to be the #1 discussion that I have with caregivers.

The Anderson & Madell article linked above has some really awesome printable brochures for families that are full of fantastic ideas for how to keep hearing aids on children birth-kindergarten. Their list of retention ideas is also great -- they include parent ratings of different products & lots of detailed information about the development of listening skills from infancy through kindergarten age.

Below, I've compiled my own list of resources for products to help keep hearing aids on young children including commercially produced, handmade & DIY solutions ... in terms of ages, the effectiveness & appropriateness of the solutions listed will vary greatly from child to child - again see Anderson & Madell (2014) for a parent review of effectiveness & suggestions by age group. Now onto my list...

Most simply, there are four primary categories of 'hearing equipment retainers' for children:

1. Caps/Hats
2. Cords/Clips 
3. Headbands 
4. Adhesive/Tape

Caps & Hats
For very young children, one of the first suggestions frequently is a tight fitting 'pilot' cap style hat that covers the ears & hearing equipment and ties securely. This makes it more difficult for babies to pull their hearing aids out... but not impossible! Look for a tight fitting cap made of light weight material & strings long enough to tie securely.

Commercially Available Pilot Caps: 

Hannah Anderson 

Handmade Pilot Caps: 

Anchor Your Hearing on Etsy

Emmifaye Boutique on Etsy
Hearing Halo on Etsy 

LilCleo on Etsy

Lil'Nell's on Etsy

Silkawear.com

WhatAboutTheBoys on Etsy

DIY Options:

Fibers & Twigs Pattern on Etsy

Sew Liberated FREE pilot cap pattern

Sew Liberated FREE pixie hat pattern

Cords & Clips
This options is pretty simple -- a cord (i.e. string) of some sort attaches to the child's hearing equipment and then is secured to the child's clothing. If the equipment comes off, it doesn't go far!

Commercially Available Options: 

Ear Gear
Huggie Aids

Jr. Clip by Phonak

OtoClips by Westone

Handmade Options:

Angel Wear on Facebook

Bebop Shop on Etsy

DIY Options:

Dental Floss & Safety Pin

Sunglasses Holder & Safety Pin

Headbands
Headbands for behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aid & CI's are specially designed with loops and/or pockets to hold the behind-the-ear portion - that is often too heavy for the tiny ears of an infant or toddler. Look for light weight materials and avoid covering the microphone area of the HA/CI.

Handmade Options 

Harry's Ears Headband on Etsy

Hearing Henry Headband

World Piece Elastic Headband on Etsy 

DIY Options 

Cochlear Loops DIY Headband 

Thin Elastic DIY Headband

Toupee/Wig & Medical  Tape 
Toupee/wig and medical tape are adhesives that are specially designed for use on the skin - but can potentially be irritating to sensitive skin. Toupee/wig tape (i.e. double sided tape) can be trimmed to size then placed on a BTE hearing aid or CI processor - on the side that rests against the head. Medical tape (i.e. single sided tape) can be placed over the earmold portion of the hearing aid - over the entire outer ear. Used alone, adhesive options are not especially reliable, but are a nice addition to other methods. (affiliate links below for your convenience)

Toupee/Wig Tape

Lace Fx A Curve Adhesive Strips

Roll Clear 3/4" Toupee Tape

Toupee Tape Non Glare 1"x3"

Medical Tape

Nexcare Clear Tape 3/4"

References: 
Anderson K, J Madell. Improving hearing and hearing aid retention for infants and young children. Hearing Review. 2014;21(2): 16-20.

In the News: Hearing Aids Improve Outcomes...

Well.... yeah! A recent study indicates that when children with hearing loss wear hearing aids, their speech & language abilities improve - seems kind of like a no-brainer, but it's a little piece of tangible evidence to support what many speech, language and hearing professionals have known for years. The more that kids wear their hearing aids, the better they do!

The study looked at a relatively small group of 180 three to five year old children with mild-moderate and moderate-severe hearing loss - the study did not include children in in the severe-profound range.  The researchers collected information on speech, language & articulation performance, hearing loss degree and hearing aid wear time. Two important facts were noted in their results:

1. Children who received the most benefit from their hearing aids showed higher speech & language scores. 
2. And, duration of hearing aid wear improved outcomes -- especially in children who received the most benefit from their hearing aids. 

These results provide a strong rationale for children with a mild hearing loss to receive & wear hearing aids - as they stand to benefit the most! For children with a moderate-severe hearing loss, it provides support to double & triple check hearing aid programing in order to ensure maximum gain - the more access to sound that these children receive from their hearing aids, the greater the potential long term outcomes!

Whether you're a parent or a teacher, the next time you hear (or think): 'He does fine without his hearing aids - why fight this battle?' remember this study! As a teacher who deals with this issue frequently, I often counter with my own question: How much better could he do if he could hear like you do?  

Check out the Reuters article for more information or the original article from the JAMA Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery.


References: 
Doyle, K. (13 Apr. 2014). Hearing aids for kids could improve speech and language. Reuters Online. Retrieved from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/07/us-hearing-aids-idUSBREA361HJ20140407

Tomblin J, Oleson JJ, Ambrose SE, Walker E, Moeller M. (2014). The influence of hearing aids on the speech and language development of children with hearing loss. JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. doi:10.1001/jamaoto.2014.267.

Listening & Language Games: What's in the Bag?

What's in the Bag? is a simple & entertaining guessing game that I frequently utilize in my preschool classroom... It's great because the possibilities for play are endless! The game can be easily modified to meet the individual needs of all of my students with very little effort on my part & it targets a wide variety of developmental & early learning skills including: vocabulary development, listening skills, speaking skills, social-communication, turn-taking, self-control and tactile perception.

What you'll need: 
A bag that you cannot see through
Collection of 5-10 small objects that fit inside the bag

There are many different ways to play, but he most basic instructions are as follows:

1. Put the items in the bag - all, a few or only one at a time - you decide! 
2. Take turns reaching into the bag - don't peek! Try to identify an object by feeling it before removing it from the bag. 
3. The player to guess the most items correctly before removing it from the bag wins! 

Now here's where it gets fun... the possibilities are endless...

Practice Listening - Use objects that have sounds associated with them - we frequently use items from a collection of listening toys including objects like: cow/moo, butterfly/uffuff, baby in cradle/shhhh, ice cream cone/mmmm, airplane/ahhhh, ghost/oooooo, bee/eeeee, snake/ssssss, boat/buhbuh etc. Once the kids have a few minutes to explore the toys & practice the sounds, we put all of the items in the bag. The bag keeper will name an object OR make the sound associated with the object. The students must listen, then try to pull the correct item from the bag without looking. Once all the items have been removed, the items are cleaned up in the order the bag keeper dictates - so the students must continue listening in order to figure out which items have been requested by the bag keeper.

Practice Asking Questions & Giving Clues - Have a player choose an object to put inside of the bag. When we play this version at school, I have my students choose from a limited selection of items, so that the possibilities are a closed-set (i.e. only a limited number of possible answers). The bag keeper either gives clues OR answers questions posed by the other players. I usually have the bag keeper give 3 clues OR each player may ask 3 questions before guessing. If no one guesses correctly, we reveal the item & give another child a turn to be the bag keeper.

As the teacher, I'm often the 'bag keeper' when we play any version of this game, which allows me to modify game play based on each child's individual strengths & needs from turn to turn. I really love this game, as there are few small-group games that allow for listening skill practice along the entire hierarchy (detection, discrimination, identification & comprehension) in addition to expressive language skills practice.  

Baby Dolls & Hearing Aids {Peek @ the Week}

I finally got around to adding hearing aids to all of our classroom dolls...

Some of our dolls already had hearing equipment, but they needed a little fixing up and newer dolls needed devices added... 

It was mostly a simple process  - just a little fabric paint in the shape of a hearing aid and/or cochlear implant on the dolls' ear(s) left to dry overnight. And a piece of felt, some hot glue & some craft foam to make the BAHA hearing aid. The kids LOVE the addition & were completely amazed that the dolls are the same as they are!

Do your dolls have any adaptations to match your students?

Listen! I hear audiobooks...

Over the last couple of months, I've purchased quite a few audiobooks through our school's Scholastic book orders and have been trying to figure out how to best set up a listening center for my preschool students who have varying degrees of hearing loss AND different amplification devices. Some of the audiobooks have been pretty good, with music and/or sound effects that compliment the story while others, have been awful renditions! Here's what I came up with so far:

I dug out my old iPhone, cleared off the content & set it up with some of the audiobook mp3 files. Since it was an old iPhone 3, I was unable to upgrade to the newest operating system, so I moved all of the icons except for the 'music' icon off to the 2nd and 3rd screen (on newer devices, you can 'drag them on top' of each other to put them into other 'folders.') I also went into settings & restricted internet, email & camera access to make the phone less functional - so my kids could only use it for the purpose intended. This is much easier on newer devices and can easily be set under the accessibility menu to only grant access to a single function at a time. I used the internet to add cover art to each of the audio tracks so that my non-reading Prek students could easily figure out which audio file matched the book they wanted to read.

With the help of our audiologist, I collected audio accessory cables & other connectors for the array of hearing aids that my students have including Phonak, Oticon & Cochlear Ltd. products. I also had to get a headphone jack adapter because of the recessed headphone jack in the old iPhone made it impossible to plug in the audio cords - my techie husband helped me out with this! Here's a picture of all of the listening center supplies in their box (I found these great Lego storage boxes on clearance at my local Walmart - they're just the right size for a bunch of books!)

We've experimented with the audio cables for direct input - which has been interesting. Some of the kids like the direct input, while others seem to prefer to hold them up to their 'ear' like a telephone. Some students have even quite accurately named this activity the 'book phone.'

I was a bit surprised by how much my students engaged with this activity! Most of my students are doing very well with it & find it fun - however, I think that it's worth noting that all of the students who have found it enjoyable also have pretty good auditory comprehension & receptive language skills - but not necessarily 'mild' hearing loss; some of the students that like this the most actually have a severe-profound loss & have to work VERY hard to understand what they're hearing! For students who have lower receptive language skills, I think that I will be working on recording alternates with simplified language, no sound effects & integration of learning to listen sounds/simple songs.

I also MUST mention that listening activities like this are absolutely NOT a substitute for having high quality conversations & interactions with young children who have hearing loss. The use of these audiobooks isn't necessarily intended to improve their language skills, but rather provide an interesting opportunity to engage with technology in a way similar to my students' hearing peers. I'd venture to guess that most preschoolers have probably played a game on a caregiver's phone or tablet from time to time - but my students, while they've all likely engaged with technology, have probably missed out on a significant portion of the music and sound effects that go with it. Listening centers are a way for my students who have hearing loss to engage in experience with technology more like their hearing peers do - and if we end up working on language skills - great!

Since setting up the first listening center, I've located two additional older iPhones from family & friends and I'm working on also setting them up for use in my classroom!  This is definitely something that we'll continue to explore in the classroom... check back for more of our experiences with these listening centers.

Rewind {Snow & The Mitten... }

January was a strange, long month... filled with 2-hour delays, snow days, sick days and other odd interruptions to the usual routine. I'm glad to say that the month is over, but looking back, I realize that I blogged about only a few of our classroom activities from last month. Here's a quick recap of the month...

Snowball Counting Tray  - The kids counted out white pompom snowballs on to the numbered mittens and then checked their work with a filled out tens frame on the back. We used one of our 'Fine Motor Gloves' to practice pinching one snowball at a time with thumb and pointer finger.

Salt Tray - A simple, but classic tray! A little iridescent glitter makes the salt look a bit more like snow too. Students traced sandpaper letter cards with a finger, then copied the letter in the salt tray with a finger. 

Magazine Letter Cut & Paste -  For this tray, I used my printable magazine letters and alphabet worksheet. This tray was time consuming and we worked on it over the course of a week+ Students found & matched letters, cut them out and then pasted them on top of the matching letter on the alphabet worksheet.

Pipe Cleaners & Beads - I really love this activity & have many seasonally coordinated sets of pipe cleaners & beads for other times of the year! Preparation was simple - just hot glue little laminated mittens to the ends of the pipe cleaners, write a numeral on the mittens and provide beads for stringing. Some students worked on making sets of beads to match the numeral, while others just worked on the fine motor aspect of stringing the beads - there's one of our fine motor gloves again!

Foam Alphabet Puzzles & Hammers - What preschooler wouldn't be motivated by the opportunity to hammer something? I found these small individual letter puzzles at a dollar store a while back and was smart enough to by several sets of them. I've sorted out the letters needed for each child to construct their name and added a fun little wooden hammer - students find the letters they need for their names, put them together and hammer the pieces in to make their names. I provide a picture of the finished product for students who still need a model to correctly order the letters of their name. 

The Mitten Cut & Paste - After looking all over the internet for a cut & paste activity with the animals from the mitten, I ended up making my own - that had straight lines for simpler cutting! 

We used this as both a retelling activity & a vocabulary/preposition practice activity. The students had to listen for the name of the animal & the location to place the animal. With more advanced students, I gave longer directions that included a list of 2-3 animals and their locations all at once. It was great practice following orally given directions!

Roll-A-Mitten Color Game - We used this game, from my Roll-A-Mitten activity pack, as a small group game for color practice, waiting for a turn, following directions and more. Students rolled the dice, named the color, found a matching crayon and colored a mitten.

Tubes & Balls Exploration - I bought a variety of tubes (black plastic drainage pipes & dryer vent tubes) at the hardware store and collected a basket full of white balls of different sizes & weights - snowballs. (Our favorite balls are these 'Snowballs' that are like giant pompoms) We cut and hung the tubes along the window using suction cup hooks (the kind you'd use in the shower) and rubber bands. Then we did experiments to see which balls would go the furthest and/or fastest. The kids also explored the tubes using other toys including blocks and animal figurines - some things got stuck and others did not. It's been a great activity for students of all ability levels - with so many great concepts to talk about and try out!

'Twas the night before Thanksgiving...

Well we spent the day traveling "over the river and through the woods... through the snow... to grandmother's house we go.... " -feels like forever, but my husband did all the driving and we made great time. I just took a quick break and went out to the the bookstore for the internet access. I had one more Thanksgiving activity that I just had to post before the time has gone!

At preschool, we spent the last couple of weeks reading "Feast for 10" The kids made a small art project for each of the first ten items in the book: 1 shopping cart, 2 pumpkins, 3 chickens, 4 children, 5 kinds of beans, 6 bunches of greens, 7 pickles, 8 tomatoes, 9 potatoes and 10 helping hands....

My assistant and I laminated and cut out ALL of their artwork and made these cute take home story telling bags.

Inside, the children's art projects were hole punched, tied together and labeled for easy story retelling at home! We also included a page with an abbreviated version of the first half of the story. Here's a look inside:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for Thanksgiving...

Here are a few of the Thanksgiving activities and crafts we've been working on... I just haven't had time to get them all posted! The following activities are heavy on receptive and expressive language practice!

Last week, we learned about letter T. Here's our Letter T turkeys...

I had my classroom assistant pre-cut all the pieces for this craft. The children practiced following directions with specific shape, color and location vocabulary concepts. Before we got started, I introduced all the pieces and named them by shape, color and which part of the turkey each piece would be. I verbally reviewed the steps involved and layed the pieces together on my page for my students to see. Then, my students helped to tell me the directions. When they got stuck, I gave the direction and had them listen carefully to choose the pieces - the brown half circle vs. the brown circle etc.

We read the book "Today is Monday" by Eric Carle and sang the book. I found this great little write-on version with a dry erase marker at a local discount store. I asked each child to name a food as we read and I drew a picture of the food and wrote the words while we read.

We also played the "Today is Monday" game - another item I picked up somewhere for cheap! Although the game is for ages 3+ it did seem to work better with my 4 year old students.

It lent itself to both expressive and receptive language practice. My assistant and I modeled using whole sentences when the children drew a card from the pool "I got spaghetti." "I picked a chicken." I also asked the children questions about the food items, "Do you like meatballs with your spaghetti?" And when it was my turn to choose a card, I gave the students clues about my card before showing them, "I picked something that is a vegetable, it is long and green, and the porcupine ate it on Monday. What did I choose." We also talked about whose turn it was - "My turn." and "Your turn." When we got down the end of the game, where players only needed one or two items, we talked about the concepts of 'sharing' and 'giving' game pieces that players didn't need.

Next week at school, we'll be wrapping up Thanksgiving as we head into a 5 day break... then onto Winter and Holiday themes!

Happy Anniversary!

In just a few days, I'll celebrate my one-year anniversary selling teaching materials on TpT! I can hardly believe it's been a whole year! I've learned so much this year when it comes to creating materials, design skills, photo editing, blogging and much more... I can't thank all my friends, family and customers enough for their support this last year! Here's to another year of creative ideas...

Enjoy %15 off of everything in my store until 11/26!

Finally Friday!

What a week! I must say it was longer, busier and crazier than the last... how is that possible? I just hope that next week doesn't get worse!

1.  I love fall... the leaves, the weather, the golden sun, the smell.. all of it. I really just love this time of year. Here are some activities that I did with my son.

2.  Pumkins & Jack-O-Lanterns --  we made a jack-o-lantern during language group in our classroom. Here's our final carved pumpkin and here's what it looked like when we lit it up (with a battery operated flashlight) in the bathroom :)

3. FARM  -- we've been getting ready for a field trip to the farm next week... here's one of this week's lesson baskets. I've got "The Cow Who Clucked" by Denise Flemming, an animal sound book, props for my story and my interactive sticker book in the basket.

4. Professional Development. I can only hope that professional development for next year is something more meaningful and useful than what I'm required to do this year. I have to take (or retake) Human Growth and Development as per the wonderful state board of education. In an effort to keep a positive mind, here are the positives of retaking a 100 level class that I've already taken --

1. I will be reminded of typical growth and development as I do spend MOST of my time with children who have special needs 
2. I must complete a field placement and this will give me an opportunity to see what other teachers are doing -- right now I NEVER get to watch other teachers to see what they're doing 
3. I might learn how to be a better college level professor or 'highjack' some good ideas for use in my own higher learning classroom!

5.  Classroom Tree -- last year I had this great tree in the corner of my classroom that stayed up all year and that changed with the theme and/or season. This year, I just haven't have the time to resurrect it... until this week... here's a picture of the tree in progress -- there's more pictures and a final picture to come!

and that's my 5 for Friday!

DIY Interactive Books...

Here's a little project that I've been working on lately: DIY interactive books out of cheap discount store sticker books. I love sticker books, but the problem with sticker books is that they can only be 'restuck' so many times with a classroom full of preschool students; they about destroyed one of these 're-usable' sticker books in one a day! They did, however, have a great time with the book before annihilating it.  I set out to solve this problem with a few cheap books in hand, some cardstock, sharp scissors and my school's industrial size laminator.

Here's a farm themed sticker book that I purchased a while ago at the dollar store:

First, I took out the sticker pages and placed the stickers on a piece of white cardstock. I left a little room around them and cut them out with a little edge beyond the stickers' edge.

Then I did a little surgery and took the book apart - this one just had a couple of staples in the middle that I needed to pull out.

With all my pieces in hand, I went to the laminator and carefully sent all the pieces through - be sure to leave enough space around them to have a bit of laminating all around so that the stickers are sealed inside.

Then I cut out all the pieces again - this was the time consuming part (cutting twice), but I do think that having each piece securely encased in laminate will pay off in the long run, as the edges shouldn't peel part easily with use.

With all my pieces and pages cut out a second time, I placed soft Velcro strips inside the book (where the stickers should have been placed) and the rough Velcro on the backs of my 'sticker' pieces.

Once all the Velcro was attached, I punched a few holes in with a paper punch in the spine and used metal rings to keep the pages together. Now I have a great little interactive book that my kids love to read!

My kids practically beg to read it and love putting the 'sticker 'pieces in the book kind of like a puzzle.

We've been practicing listening skills (receptive language) in lots of different ways --
1. Listen to the animal that I describe by name, color, size, shape and/or sound then choose correct animal. 
2. Listen to a list of 2-4 animals that I name and/or describe then choose animals in correct order.
3. Listen to clues about an animal then correctly guess which animal I'm talking about.
4. Listen to directions concerning 'where' to place the animal - practicing prepositions. 

And for expressive language:
1. Students use word, phrase or sentence to tell which animal they want to put on
2. Students give oral direction to a peer about which animal to take
3.  Students describe the animal they picked by name, sound, color, shape etc
4. Students tell where they will put their animal - practicing prepositions.

This project lends itself well to easy differentiation for student strengths and needs in the context of a single group activity - simply change your questions to meet the needs of each student during their turn. It's been a great exercise in waiting for a turn and listening to their peers. There are so many ways to use little books like these - the possibilities really are endless!

I have a few more sticker books that I'm working on converting - so stay tuned for more books like these!

Ahh... Friday!

It's been a crazy busy week - I almost thought I'd lose my mind this week between my day job at preschool, my night work at the university, my toddler at home AND the addition of a class for my teaching re-certification!!!  There have been more than a few movements where I about threw my hands into the air and walked away... but thankfully, there's always been something to bring me back to earth - my husband, my son, the beautiful fall weather, a university student thanking me for something that I taught them or one of my preschoolers accomplishing something new and exciting. I am thankful for everyone who supports me in ALL of my many endeavors - on this Friday, I'll recap with my a 5 for Friday:

1. Sensory Bin Preparation - My son and I enjoyed putting together the fall themed sensory bin for my preschool students. He tested it out and approved.  Here he is playing in the popcorn - you can find more about this sensory bin here.

2. Re-purposed Sensory Bin -- Then when I took the sensory bin to school, he threw a fit! He insisted that the 'popcorn box' come back - instead I brought home the rainbow pasta from 2 weeks ago. This is how he re-purposed the rainbow pasta for his own enjoyment.

3.  Fall Leaves -- At school, we've been learning about fall and leaves - I really LOVE the fall and all of the beautiful fall leaves. Today, I found myself wandering around the yard, looking for leaves... here's our scissor practice tray with colorful fall leaves.

4.  Paper Bag Pumpkin Craft - today we made a pumpkin out of a paper lunch sack during our language group. Our speech therapist did a great job with this activity! The kids loved stuffing the bag with paper towels, painting and then adding pieces for the face.

5. Fine Motor Friday... well it's really been all week. I have a few students who need lots of adaptations for activities, which has challenged me to think outside of the box many times this week. I'm working on a post of fine motor related modifications that I make so that all of my students can participate in activities during the week. Here are a few of this weeks' ideas - wiki sticks to help students look at their work and to color inside the lines and painted fingernails (hot pink, nail stickers and glitter) to help remind a student to orient hands properly for cutting tasks.

Thanks for visiting! What did you do this week? Feel free to link your post in the comments!