Parents Jennifer and Todd White of Wheaton were hoping Lauren would scream bloody murder — an indication her ears and brain were receiving their first bits of noise.
She didn’t.

Installed in a blue and white plaid high chair, the toddler largely proceeded with the task at hand — studying the pages of a Disney princess picture book, licking a Tootsie Roll Pop or giving her stuffed Elmo a big smooch — as Mom, Dad and the hearing specialists made exaggerated sounds to elicit a reaction.

“Bop bop bop bop bop bop. Uh oooooooh!” they took turns saying, clapping loudly every so often.
Lauren seemed uninterested. Or unaware.

Her behavior was more in line with her old profoundly deaf self who failed to even flinch when a train zoomed by — not the recent patient of a successful bilateral embed operation.

It was an anticlimactic end.

The Whites had been concerned with Lauren’s developmental regression leading up to the two November days they spent programming the implants at Adventist Paulson Pediatric Rehabilitation Center in Hinsdale.

“She had gotten pretty quiet in the 5 months pre-surgery. She dropped a lot of eye contact, and she started to withdraw,” Jennifer said. “That was really, really sad.”

Thankfully, however undramatic Lauren’s rehab center performance was for the dozen or so untrained bystanders jam-packed into a toy-littered office, it failed to disappoint for the observers qualified to make an evaluation on her responses.

“This is not atypical. Just watch for the increased eye blinking (and) a slight turn of the head,” said pediatric audiologist coordinator Dawn Maniskas. “So far, she’s doing great. She’s acclimating very well.”

“I saw those little eyelashes go... That was a beautiful thing,” Todd said, elated.

“OK, so it is working,” Jennifer said, reassured. “Her eyes really tell it all.”

STARTING FROM DAY ONE

Despite the news that Lauren is on track, the Whites are cognizant that cochlear implants are far from a foolproof, immediate cure. Lauren’s medical team dutifully mitigated unrealistic expectations, educating Jennifer and Todd on what reasonably can be achieved with the devices.

“A lot of people think you activate it, and ‘Boom!,’ everything snaps into place, and sound will be crystal clear,” Jennifer said. “We know we’ve got lots of hard work ahead of us.”

Lauren, now almost 20 months old, has therapy four days a week and will continue her visits with Maniskas while her electronic processors are fine-tuned. The audiologist tinkers with the implants during these “mapping” sessions, adjusting sound levels and other settings for Lauren’s customized maximum hearing capability — a challenge without the guidance of a patient who can articulate feedback like “Too loud,” or “Too distorted.”

Even with perfectly aligned pieces of equipment, Lauren won’t be speaking for at least a year. Because her brain hadn’t been exposed to sound before, it needs training on how to process the information generated from a newly discovered sense, said Tracy Meehan, Lauren’s early intervention developmental hearing therapist. First is six months of listening and pure immersion, where she’ll use her voice to babble. Then, it’s gradual language acquisition and vocalization.

“It’s like she’s a newborn again — starting from day one,” Meehan said.

To help Lauren along, the Whites have made a concerted effort to construct sound-subject associations for her so she knows what noises are connected with which objects or actions. If the doorbell rings or a dog barks, an adult family member is expected to snatch up Lauren, rush over to the sound source, point and say the words out loud. The drills pair aural information with visual cues, and Maniskas said the verbal labels help patients adapt more quickly to conventional forms of communication.

Jennifer and Todd’s longterm goal is to get Lauren into a mainstreamed school by kindergarten, meaning she’d likely attend pre-K at a special school for the deaf in preparation for the move.

“She’s a smart cookie, but we have a lot of catching up to do,” said Jennifer, who expects Lauren’s sign language usage eventually to taper off. “I don’t think we can just jump right into an academic setting (without assistive services).”

Refusing to get overwhelmed by the demanding itinerary, the Whites resolved to celebrate how far Lauren already has come. The family celebrated her “hearing birthday,” coinciding with the first activation day, with a funfetti cake and presents.

“I can’t wait until she recognizes her name,” Jennifer said. “She’ll even be able to discriminate between Bach and Beethoven.”

PROGRESS

For now, though, the Whites are reveling in the small triumphs. Lauren — renicknamed Stereo Sis following her switch-on trials — is picking up on more and more environmental sounds.

The first emotional moment came in the kitchen just days after activation. One of Lauren’s daily rituals is to enjoy a bottle of warm milk after a cozy afternoon nap. Every day, Jennifer pours the milk and puts it in the microwave, and it’s Lauren’s responsibility to shut the appliance door.

“They literally have shared this experience hundreds of times together — with little fanfare or excitement,” Todd said.

But on Nov. 20, something was different. When Lauren reached to close the microwave, she jumped at the noise, letting out an ear-piercing cry. Jennifer burst into tears, overwhelmed by the breakthrough, and tried to console her panicked and disoriented daughter. Then after a few seconds, the microwave beeped, and again the foreign sound assaulted Lauren’s ears, reigniting a fit of sobbing.

“(It was) another new sound Lauren had never heard before,” Todd said. “I cannot tell the joy and tears this tiny but significant experience has brought to all of us.”

Since then, Lauren has become more accustomed to household sounds as she forms an aural memory bank. She’s no longer upset by a slamming cabinet door on the entertainment center or banging cookie sheets on the floor, two of her favorite pastimes.

“She’s definitely detecting more from her surroundings than ever before. Lauren is responding to bells ringing, toys dropping, the distinctive laughter of Jen and her grandmother,” Meehan said. “Every day is bringing something new for the family.”

But perhaps the biggest milestone yet is Lauren’s curiosity about the whirring of the vacuum cleaner. Pre-cochlear implants, Jennifer could turn it on right in front of Lauren, and she showed no signs of registering the racket. Yet over the last few weeks, when Jennifer is cleaning in another room, Lauren will crawl around the house to find the source of the din.

“She wants to come check it out. It’s like ‘OK, where’s that coming from?” Jennifer said. “We expect she’ll do that more and more. All these subtle differences are really big for us, and we’re over the moon with the changes in her.”

http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/burrridge/news/x1898856288/Waiting-for-a-sound-Deaf-toddler-gets-cochlear-implants-turned-on