Grand Ballroom, Sturbridge Host Hotel, Sturbridge, MA
Geared to Educators and Clinicians,
Parents Are Welcome to Register and Attend.
SUPPORTING TRANSITIONS
For Learners Who Use Cochlear Implants
And the Minuteman Implant Club, Inc.
Learners who use cochlear implants experience many transitions: from vision to hearing for language understanding, from early intervention to preschool, from self-contained classrooms to mainstream education at a variety of grade levels, and from high school to college and vocations. They face these transitions with a variety of auditory, linguistic, and social skills. This workshop is designed to help educational teams to be resilient and responsive to the changing needs of learners who listen with cochlear implants as they undergo transitions in communication and education.
CART is available in all the Friday programs.
Special events: Ice Cream Social, 7 - 9 PM - See information at bottom.
8:30 - 9:00 AM Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:15 AM Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Marilyn Neault, Ph.D., Director of Habilitative Audiology, Children’s Hospital Boston
9:15 - 10:30 AM Skating Rinks vs. Parking Lots: Transitioning from Visual to Auditory along the Communication Continuum
Mary E. Koch, M.A., Auditory Education Consultant
The revolutionary technology of the cochlear implant has provided children and adults with access to sound and opportunities for learning to listen. Many factors will impact an individual’s ability to make sense of that sound. For more than two centuries, education of children with hearing loss has been viewed from the perspective of communication methodology—sign vs. oral. This presentation seeks to shift the focus from methodology preferences of the professionals to the assessed strengths and needs of the individual child. A developmental framework of auditory skills balanced with age appropriate fostering of cognitive and linguistic skills will be presented. Structures and strategies will be discussed in order to systematically optimize auditory information and transition from a visual to auditory communication without compromising language and cognition.
10:30 - 10:50 AM Break
10:50 AM - 12:20 PM The Communication Dashboard: Integrating Auditory Skills in Classroom Settings. This section will include examples to apply principles for planning supports for learners with varying needs, grade levels and placements.
Mary E. Koch, M.A., Auditory Education Consultant
The task of fostering language, listening and thinking skills in a child with a cochlear implant requires an ongoing awareness of many factors. Just as when driving a car, we must have an awareness of speed, gas gauge and engine temperature, a teacher must maintain an awareness of multiple factors that will impact the child’s learning; function of the CI and FM systems, auditory acuity, expressive vs. expressive language, cognitive vs. auditory capabilities, background noise, attention, context and more. The Communication Dashboard presents a framework for integrating each of these factors in the context of pre-academic and academic instruction with children of a variety of ages.
12:20 - 1:15 PM Buffet Lunch (ticket included in registration packet)
Atrium Courtyard
1:15 - 1:45 PM Sound Outreach to Schools (SOS): Update on FM Amplification and Assistive Technologies for Students with Cochlear Implants
Marilyn Neault, Ph.D., Director of Habilitative Audiology, Children’s Hospital Boston
Educational teams face a bewildering array of assistive devices to help students with cochlear implants to access the curriculum. Dr. Neault will provide a brief overview of the types of assistive technologies available and the importance of educational audiology to manage the auditory devices.
NOTE: FROM 2:00 - 3:30 PM ATTENDEES WILL CHOOSE FROM WORKSHOP A
OR B.
1:45 - 2:00 PM Break to split into Workshop A or B
2:00 - 3:30 PM Workshop A
Effective Therapy Intervention for Young Children with Hearing Loss: Materials and Methods that Work
Honore Weiner, EdD, CCC-SLP and Lannon Twomey, MS, CCC-SLP
This presentation addresses practical questions that face educational teams and particularly speech-language pathologists and teachers of the deaf when students with cochlear implants enter the mainstream: How can we maximize intervention for students with cochlear implants? What therapy tools work to facilitate speech and auditory skill development? What language therapy materials are effective in building semantics and syntax? This session is very useful for specialists working with children who use hearing aids as well.
2:00 - 3:30 PM Workshop B
Prepare to Launch: Personal, Academic and Technological Supports for Transition from High School to College
Dr. Gerald Buckley, Associate Vice President for College Advancement, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology
Dr. Buckley will provide an overview of challenges and opportunities facing high school students and their families as they began planning their postsecondary education career path. He will summarize research related to retention, persistence and graduation rates of college students in general and deaf and hard of hearing students specifically. Strategies for encouraging the successful transition of students to college will be described and discussed. A special emphasis will be devoted to how educational professionals working with students with cochlear implants can help to foster the development of “soft skills” as a critical component of the educational preparation for college and work. Resources for supporting successful transition will be identified. Participants will leave this session with an understanding of the challenges facing students with cochlear implants as they prepare for college as well as a set of resources/tools and ideas for helping these students prepare accordingly. The session will be highly interactive with significant audience participation and engagement.
3:30 - 3:45 PM Break (both groups reconvene)
3:45 - 4:45 PM We Hear the World, Now You Hear Us!
A panel of college students who use cochlear implants discuss their experiences with transitions and share what was helpful to them and what they would suggest to others.
4:45 PM Adjourn
About the Friday Presenters:
Mary E. Koch, M.A. is an independent auditory education consultant providing services and support for children with hearing loss in a wide variety of communication modalities and educational settings. As a graduate of Gallaudet’s teacher training program and former clinical director of an Auditory-Verbal Center, Mary brings a very diverse perspective to working with children who are deaf and their families. With more than 30 years experience in schools, clinics and hospitals, Mary is now consulting with schools for the deaf, cochlear implant manufacturers, and public and private school programs across the country. She is co-developer of the ACoRN project at Boys Town National Research Hospital; a national model of training and support for professionals serving students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Mary is the author of Bringing Sound to Life: Principles and Practices of Cochlear Implant Rehabilitation; Word Associations for Syllable Perception (WASP) and Making the Connection: A Handbook for Adolescents and Adults with Cochlear Implants and their Families. Her mission is to foster connection and communication with children, families and professionals through language uniquely suited to individual strengths and needs—one child at a time.
Dr. Gerald Buckley has been involved in postsecondary education for the deaf and hard of hearing for 29 years. Dr. Buckley currently serves as Assistant Vice President for College Advancement at National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, NY. He is responsible for providing leadership to the Admissions, Placement, Marketing Communications, Outreach, and Development functions for the institute. He has completed educational degrees at Rochester Institute of Technology, The University of Missouri -Columbia, and the University of Kansas. He has served as the President of the Board of ADARA and currently serves as President of the Lexington School for the Deaf Board of Trustees in New York City. He has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award for the College for NTID (1985) and the College of Liberal Arts (1996). He has served on the National Advisory Board of the National Institute of Health's Institute on Deafness. He is a cochlear implant user and in fact the parent of a CI user who is presently completing her DVM degree at Michigan State University where she will become the 4th Deaf Veterinarian in 2010.
Honore Weiner, Ed.D., CCC-SLP was affiliated with the C.A.S.E. Collaborative Program for Hearing/Speech/Language Impaired (Concord, MA) for 32 years, serving as Program Administrator for most of that time. Currently she applies her extensive experience in educational programming by consulting to school districts and offering inservice training for staff, to support successful transitions to mainstreaming and continued progress for students who use cochlear implants and/or hearing aids.
Lannon Twomey,, M.S., CCC-SLP is a knowledgeable, experienced and effective speech-language pathologist who worked in the C.A.S.E. Collaborative Program with young students who were deaf and hard of hearing for three years, and currently provides therapy and consultation in the Boxborough, MA Public Schools. In addition, she has a private practice.
Marilyn Neault, Ph.D., CCC-A is Director of Habilitative Audiology at Children’s Hospital Boston and Assistant Professor of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School. She has been working in pediatric audiology for over 30 years. Her current primary interest areas are cochlear implants and auditory neuropathy.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
As a result of this course, the attendee will be able to:
1. Describe the continuum of transition from visual to auditory communication for a child who uses a cochlear implant.
2. Identify ways for a school to prepare educational supports for a student who is undergoing educational or communicative transitions with a cochlear implant.
3. Explain the benefit a student with a cochlear implant may receive from FM amplification and how to support its use.
The following sessions are open to all:
5:15 - 5:45 PM Introduction to Cochlear Implants: An Overview for Newcomers Seminar Room. Marilyn Neault, Ph.D., Children’s Hospital Boston.
Friday workshop attendees are welcome to stay for this overview after perusing the exhibits, participating in the Silent Auction or taking a walk by the lake. Early arrivers for Saturday are welcome to join us as well.
