Prisha goes to school in Germany

All set for the new school

First day at school

In class

      Last month has been so full of my settling in the new place new home and in 2 days it was also school time, that I had no time to write on my blog.I am so glad, today I am updating it , weather is just right to sit at home and write.The cold  and the rain  and coffee just put me in the mood.
     Prisha started school on 12th Aug and we had no idea what we could expect. We all were very excited at the newness of it.It is a long day and Prisha went happily and after 4 months of being home, home felt empty with both my kids away for a good 7 hrs.In the evening she looked fine and the teacher wanted to see me the next morning. I was a bit worried as I did not know what to expect.The next morning at school Prisha started to cry as she didn't want to go.A promise of a surprise waiting at home fixed that.But I got concerned and felt that Prisha was finding it hard to understand what others are talking as the accent is very different and there are people from so many countries.She was finding it difficult to make friends too as some don't speak             English at all.So I was prepared with my concerns too to meet Mrs.Hunt, her teacher.
     Mrs. Hunt wanted to understand a bit more about Prisha. She thought that she was not hearing well in the class and maybe Prisha needs to lip read.I told her that since all this was new to her, she would take time to adjust.Also she needed to sit closer to her and also NO LIP READING.She is auditorily trained and did not need signs and lip reading.She said Prisha was not responding to her name being called too a couple of times.I told her that since she is new , she was more interested in knowing what was really happeneing around her with her kids next to her. Assured her that I would have a word with Prisha.I also mentioned about her not being out when it rained and she not being cold and wet as the cold aquired leads to ear infection if not treated early.So she needed to be as dry and warm as possible.Explained to her about battery change as Prisha is equipped with that knowledge too.The meeting went well and I too happy to have quick rapport with the teacher.
    The school nurse too wanted me to update her with all her issues.I told her all the issues and she said she would inform other teachers too about her requirement about being closer to the teacher and if they had issues , we would solve together.I was happy to get positive input from them as in India , I needed to do things myself and not much support was there from school.
Next 2 weeks have gone by when I have observed what she did in school.She sang out her German rhymes where she was learning numbers and little poems.She has been singing them away , though a few words here and there need to be cleared and that is happeneing slowly.So a new language and I love it when she tells me what a few words means!`Like this morning, in the shower ,she sang a number rhyme and then she said...schlafen.....Mum, schlafen means go to sleep.Her German teacher mailed in to tell me she was bright and there were no issues.I was happy.She gets one story book from school every day which we have been reading and talking about it.Drama class feedback too was good.Music class is great too as she sang out with perfect intonation but words needed to be clear here and there.The rest is well.She loves school and i am happy about it.
      Yesterday Mrs. Hunt wanted to see me again this morning.She said the nurse wanted to meet me.I went a bit uneasy again and was a bit worked up.The nurse needed her aided audiogram to know her level of hearing with aids for records and there were no complaints from teachers about her hearing, she laughed looking at my concerned face.
      Today had a meeting with the class teacher and she said that Prisha would require a little support from school to bring her to the level at which they were teaching. I could understand it as in India the styles are different and it was more rote method.here the emphasis was much on thinking and putting into words, where she sometimes is not able to or gets stuck somewhere.So she needed my permission to add her into a support class and maybe a little work with speech therapist to get her used to the accent and aid her speech.I thought that would be great as any extra work from school would not only help Prisha pick up more, it would give me a chance to work better with Prisha.she is a quick learner but she needs to leave her shyness away a bit and open up with the teacher.Also in Maths too she said she knew for eg, 5 is bigger than 2 but "how" she came to that ,she was not able to express. Maybe Prisha was not prepared for this kind of questioning as back in India , we were never asked in school about it and so did not know how to put across this.Since I too am new to this system, I asked her what she would expect, she said some kids say they counted, some showed them how. But Prisha was not able to.So I need to work on that.She could count the 20 circles and say they were 20 of them, but how did she know that they were 20, she fell short on that. The simple answer could be like said I counted, or I counted in pairs, or she could put dots on them and said they were 20 or even if she wrote on each circle the number would be fine. So need to work on it. the systems are different and has nothing to do with hearing loss.She listens to her name very well after I told her about it.The teacher has no complains and said she was bright and just needed support.I am happy about it and I hope they would add me on in those classes too as I could then work from home for her.She is now going to update me each week and also give extra work from school to give practice to her.I am looking forward to this work and hope to see Prisha at a much different level from where she is in a years time.She is already very confident, I see a vast change in her in 3 weeks of school.So more to come.

Prisha makes phone conversation

    Yesterday I was in conversation with parents who happen to discover that the child they adopted a month ago was hearing impaired.The conversation lasted about 2 hours over Skype call and since it was on loudspeaker and video, the conversation was audible to all in the house.Prisha was busy with her jobs and I thought she was not aware of what was happening.After about an hour and half, she told her dad "Dad ask mumma to stop talking, she talks so much".I found it really amusing.

 Phone made from razor packaging

     The conversation was all about this new development and so is normally very draining as far as my energy is concerned.It does drain me out emotionally as you are trying your best to share knowledge and give the best guidance to the family so they do not fall into traps of wrong doctors who have their materialistic gains in mind.The afternoon saw us connecting with another friend whose cochlear implant has major issues due to being wrongly implanted and now depends more on the other ear which works on hearing aids.Fortunately my friend was very eager to help the new parent as they live in the same city.And we exchanged notes on how best to get her the best help possible.the phone played such an important part the whole day that I did not realize that though Prisha looked totally lost in her own world ,,she must be listening to my talks as the sounds are falling on her ears and she is very auditorily trained.
     Since I was feeling a bit claustrophobic being at home all day on the sofa, we decided to go out for a drive and see a bit more of the country side in the area we live.As we set out, I was enjoying the nice cool breeze, a bit cloudy sky,( I love it as India is mostly sunny except the monsoons 2-3 months a year), the empty roads on a sunday evening and the drive, I heard Prisha at the back pick up her play phone made from another waste packaging. She started to keep chatting while my husband and I kept our conversation going ,when suddenly her conversation caught me and we stopped talking. She was talking to her friend named "Simiya" ,a name she invented on her own and was busy taking about her.She asked about her baby and her husband and was making such a REAL conversation that we were out of our wits. I really wished I had my handycam.Then she realised we stopped talking and she said," mumma, I am talking to my friend Simiya, her husband's name is Sigga and the baby's name is Saphiya". I was amazed at her new names that she had invented.We ignored her as we wanted to hear more of it, while we giggled behind our seats.She then called up another friend and said,"Hi, how are you, Ooooo, you are getting married, wow, then you will get a baby!!"and she went on.My God!! We were holding our tummy and laughing at her real conversation.Then after a bit more of chatting, she fixed a date with her friend to meet her at home as it was her birthday party in the evening.She is not too fond of going out for a drive, I have realized and is mostly then busy with her role plays and her phones or she sleeps off. Then started her rants of wanting to go home as she had to dress up to go to the birthday party. When I said we were far from home, she said,"I am sleeping and you wake me up when we reach home and remind me I have to talk to Simiya as we are late for the party" .We settled on this note and she dozed off.The moment I reached home and I woke her up, she said "Oh yes, I have to talk to Simiya". I was so amazed at the whole chain of event.She was conversing like us, introducing the way I was introducing my family to them and making up her own situations and conversations around family, friend and baby sleeping and wedding etc.
       I thought about it later and realized the importance of her being so auditorily trained. She was so tuned to sounds around her with all kinds of background sounds included, as in India there is plenty of noise in the city, that she is used to picking up voices over noises involuntarily. I thought that while I chat away on phone etc, she may be ignoring the sounds as it is natural for the hearing impaired to ignore sounds and talks around them.A lot of such people are used to talking only when spoken too and in the process miss out on what is happening around them.They miss the talks between other friends, or people talking together as they find it hard to concentrate on others' conversation.But since she is auditorily trained, she pays attention to sounds.As the sounds fall on her ears while she does her things, her brain is retaining the happenings around her and she reproduces similar things later.As the sounds fall on her ears, she keeps herself abreast to things happening around.I am so glad as this brings her closer to normalcy and we feel happy that with great speech therapy , we are able to lead quite a normal lives ourselves.Many people tell me this that she is so normal with her interaction that they feel she is not hearing impaired.I thank God and my loving speech therapist Alaka Hudlikar, who has made this so possible.And now this is so close to my heart, that anyone who is in a situation like this, I am all out to help them out.

An interesting view point on FM

I found this comment on Val's Blog.Thought would like to share this view point on my blog too with people who have FM system in mind in India .In India people do not give the pros and cons when it comes to giving advise.Kindly read the comment by "anonymous".I found it an interesting feedback.
http://deafkidscanhear.blogspot.com/2010/07/can-you-hear-me-now.html

A link on lip reading

I came through this blog from deaf village.The view point on lip reading is interesting.

http://faceme.wordpress.com/about/#comment-2638

Prisha starts to read

      I think I have been just too lazy since I shifted to Germany.Perhaps it is just that I am still in the chill out state of mind after a mind boggling rush rush life that I had in India.Prisha is over 6 years and had I started , she would have been reading.I have uploaded videos of Prisha reading on my You tube account.(Click here).I was surprised at the ease with which she picked it up although I have not been reading so much to her nor have I started her to teach to read.So this week I kick started myself to start reading and ask her read back.I read out these small books,that her aunt gifted to her, with Indian context ,somethings that she can relate to with everyday life.I read out ,asked her questions to see if she understood the story and then started to ask her to read.

     She got stuck at a few places here and there,which I gladly helped.We giggled at a few things, animated somewhere and generally enjoyed the session.In the evening I asked my husband too to participate.He was asked to just hear the story Prisha reads.It was a way of reinforcing what she had read.My husband was surprised too and asked me if she was really reading or had she memorized the story.I had no answer as I too am surprised that she read the whole story and got just stuck at a few places with new difficult words.I really felt that it was a good auditory training along with a great exercise for auditory memory development.She has to learn to read the whole word as a picture,and read it as it is if it gets repeated. She has to understand the story ,along with it she has to remember the entire sentence-hold the entire sentence together in her mind to comprehend the story.She has to remember the sound of each new word that she came across along with its meaning.Certain words are difficult to say for her still as they are not in use in everyday life, but she is so excited about reading that book ,that she brings out that book everytime I say"lets read".we read it as it helps build her confidence.So hopefully by the time she goes to her lovely new school In Dusseldorf,she would be reading more.I feel so good myself when I have been able to achieve something like this.I just need to push myself amongst all the new challenges and uncertainties of life that we are going through with the shifting to Germany, then into a new home this month end,then doing up the house and then comes the new school, teachers, new kids and building a balance with all these along with the huge change of the climate for us.Hope to have a lot of language development this coming year.

A turning point

       Well I was away for a long time.Just could not get myself to write as we had a sad event in our lives.Specially for Prisha it was a very difficult thing to cope with.I had to explain things to her which she had no clue of  and I too found it difficult to combine emotion with language.
       Prisha lost her paternal grand father on 15th June.Dadu was a big thing in her life.He had seen the time when she was about to come on this planet and had been living near us for the last 6.5 yrs of her life.He loved little girls.All the girls in our family were pampered by him.But Prisha being the youngest, took all importance.Then when she was detected for deafness,he became all the more protective for her. When I was firm with her during her speech development initial years, he was very upset.He spoilt her with colours, papers and all kinds of stationery as she loved the paper shop.If she needed somethings, she turned to him and looked with such a look in her eyes, his heart would bleed and for sure she would get it. She could get away with murder with him around.And now suddenly we heard that he passed away was very shocking to us all.
      We moved to Germany as my husband had been living alone for 3 years and we finally decided that Germany would do good to kids as the whole family would be together.I too was finding it tough to live alone with the kids.He was very attached to Prisha and she was one of reasons for him to be happy.She loved him, put balm on his knees when they pained, gave him the stick when he wanted to walk, held his hand if he wanted to get up and walk, sometimes she mothered him.Her going depressed him further as he was not a very social person.He loved to be at home with his near and dear ones.He had various health issues for the last 40 yrs.Within 5 weeks we heard that he passed away.We all rushed to India.I did not know what to tell Prisha.She used to miss them so much and used to keep telling him that she would meet him in December and he should look after himself.And now, I was left to think as to what should I tell her with her limited language about death.I told her dadu was unwell and we have to go back.She was so happy and she kept a box of chocolates  (that she got from someone), in her bag for him.I was torn inside.
      She kept asking me on the way why we were sad and crying.On reaching home, she was puzzled to see her grandma at home as she could not believe that dadu was alone in the hospital.The next day I thought it was too traumatic for her to see his body and so I left her with a friend.Inside of me I was torn between the choice.They loved eachother so much, both deserved to see each other the last time. Plus there would never be a connection about his leaving suddenly.the physical aspect is required to connect with that new concept for her of death.I could not deprive her of it and one day she might just question me on this.I decided to call her.I held her little hands, not knowing her reactions.I told her that dadu was not well and he was missing his parents a lot and so he is going into the clouds to be with them.She knew something was up and so kept nodding and listenning. he had told her once that when he is very old, he would go into the clouds and so I built the whole thing around that.She said after he meets them , he would come back to her.
      When she saw him, she just kept looking and I was looking for some reaction.She sat on the sofa with pursed lips.Suddenly she cried so loudly that everybody in the room turned with horror.She started to cry uncontrollably and people looked at me with disgust but I did what I thought was best.Everybody was upset that I could allow such a small kid to go through the pain.She saw the whole procedure and she saw him go.Later in the afternoon ,she asked me when he would be back.When I told her he had to be with his parents,she said he told her once that his mummy did not want to stay with him and so she went to the clouds and now too his mummy would not want him and send him back.I held back my tears.She has been since then talking to the clouds, talking to his photo.She played house and cooked pasta and fed his picture.She tickled his picture and kept talking to him as if he was around.She would enter the house and say "Hi Dadu" and behave as if he was around.But it was her way of trying to look normal.next day she told me that his mummy would say I don't want you, Prisha needs you and so he would come out of the cloud, sit in a hot air balloon,come down on a beach, sit in the ambulance and dad would get him back home. I was amazed at her imagination.
      On the way back to germany she looked in the clouds for him.Said there were no houses.I said he slept on the clouds.She now has started to associate white hair with going into the clouds.She gets upset when she sees a couple of white hair creeping out in my black hair.She says "your hair would always be black mumma".She says, we would all one day have white hair and go in the cloud and I would shout at dadu for going there.She keeps telling me that one day he would return to her.His mummy would send him back.When she was sick with viral for 8 days before coming back to germany, she talked to him.She told him that " now since you are in the clouds closer to God, tell him to cure me and to take my terrible headache away.I want to be all right".Every night  before sleeping she would pray to her dadu to make sure she is well again.
        I love the way she has made her adjustments through her own thought processes. We feel that kids are too small and would not understand.But we underestimate their strength.They are stronger than us and know how to take care of us and also older people.I am very glad that I let her see how her grandpa left.Once she grows up she would always be glad I did what I did.She would connect with this concept of death and I do not have to make more stories. As she matures I would clear her concept further and I am sure she would always feel closer to her loving dadu. Dadu I am sure, sitting in the clouds must be hearing everything she does and says and is now her guiding light and her "guardian angel" looking after her from there. I don't have to worry, he would make sure my little adorable girl turns out into a fine human being and her life is going to be just fine.I am glad also that I talked about it and their was a lot of new language and new words and every action we saw was verbalized.

A good link

A good link for parents of the deaf who are training their kids through AVT.
http://www.auditoryoptions.org/

A good link for parents

A very good post .Would like to share.
http://myjourneywithanandita.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-around-weak-auditory-working.html
Good information for parents.

Prisha is a mommy

My baby is home.

Sleep sleep baby.

Loving and cajoling her.Am so happy.

Well yes, Prisha is finally a mommy to a new baby doll she just had to have.I was with the friend when she she chanced upon this baby.She has been wanting one since she left her big girl back home in India.I wasn't sure if she was really wanting this as she too keeps asking for things to buy when we are out.But when we reached home she was so choked with emotions that I too was feeling a bit mean for not buying it.(Part of me also saw the price tag and found it a bit too expensive but the number of stuff in it made it very worth it!} The whole evening went by trying to get over the emotions and waiting that the morning comes and she does buy her and the various things in the box were also so attractive.The thought of taking her for a walk in the pram was the most exciting.She promised best behavior to earn it and evening went by promising no argument with the big brother and being her best and listening better too.
We are still into shopping for the new home here.So it was decided that we buy for before we go as we get more peace for shopping.Prisha was super excited and she chattered non stop about what she would do with her baby and how she would play and blah blah.I was so happy to see her shining face and was feeling bad for postponing the buy.We went into the store and Prisha ran out shouting-"my baby is crying , where is Prisha mumma, I want my mumma".She took me into that corner and ran to it with her hands stretched out and just hugged the big box.It was stark pink and Prisha's faced literally matched the colour. She insisted on picking up the box and being so heavy, we somehow convinced her to keep it in the trolley.
She ran to the the cashier and proudly and happily waited for it to be her's.The cashier too laughed out at her.We then also picked up a travelling pink pillow ans she was on a Real high.
All the way home, I got kisses and "i love yous" .I had to take her pics and she proudly posed with her baby.The best part about it was the opening.She hugged and was looking at each thing that came out so happily.Her baby had a cot and feeding plates and loads of things which was too exciting for her.
The whole evening Prisha has proved to be a perfect mommy. The baby is changed, washed , teeth are brushed, diaper is changed, put to sleep and loved and cajoled and put to bed and I felt she is a better mumma than me! I am enjoying every moment of being the grandma.She is making sure too the baby is not being over pampered by the grandma.

Ready for a walk baby?

The thing that is worrying me though is she is not listening too well.She has a cold and I am now desperate to get her audiogram done here. need to settle down fast and get her hearing updated.I need to pull myself up too to work a bit more with her.

Revision of Maths

Today my father in law called in to remind me that since the kids were away from school , Prisha could actually try and do her maths and spellings.I too have become laid back a bit as there are a lot of uncertainties in our lives. Loads of decisions to be made and so somewhere she takes a back seat.So I pulled up my socks and decided to give her a bit of maths.Her additions were 10/10 and subtraction needed one sum coaching and there too10/10! we were thrilled as i have not touched these for over a year now.Then the tables! well there she had forgotten the 2 & 3tables.So now we are making her do her 2 times table which she picked up in a few minutes.She too loves rattling them.I feel it is a great speech practice too.
These days she is a lot into mothering.Our house owners here have a 1.5 yr old daughter and Prisha loves mothering her and her little baby dolls.She loves doing "nase putzen" which is nose cleaning as she has a slight cold.She is enjoying dressing her and making sure she is well looked after.Anna too is a smart kid and tells her mum that she is not a baby and Prisha is finding it hard to accept.So the next best compromise is to look after the little baby dolls and so she is wanting a whole new baby set with a pram and crib and stuff.She did see one in the supermarket yesterday but I wanted her to have a really nice one.She is literally whining to be a mommy.She talks with so much shine in her eyes about which baby she would buy and what she would do, with that lil dimple appearing on her left cheek.I do get teary eyes looking at her eyes full of hope and waiting for the big time when she would really buy a baby. So scheduled for this weekend along with our home making shopping of sofas and house hold stuff.
It is funny to hear both Anna and Prisha talk and both trying to understand each other.Anna speaks broken German sentences and Prisha adds her English and Hindi together. But they are doing a good job. Prisha's is picking up a few new German words and I tell her the meaning and she is trying to remember them. I would like her to learn it in school too and let us see how far she goes in it.