John Tracy Clinic

I haven't written a post about this yet, so I will now. I contacted the John Tracy Clinic shortly after we received Nolan's diagnosis (via their online sign-up for the baby correspondence course). Sometimes I feel a little sad, because we used to live in Oxnard- a stone's throw from LA and JTC! The correspondence course is great, though.

A week and a half ago I received a letter explaining the baby course and assigning Nolan a case number. We received the first part of the baby course less than a week ago. It came in a big manilla envelope stamped with "Book/Video for the Deaf" on it, which was a strange moment for me. While Nolan isn't profoundly deaf, his hearing loss is permanent and seeing this drove home that point for me. I was excited to receive the materials and immediately took out the booklet for lesson 1. There was a lot of interesting material there, and the book was broken up into sections. They have games to play with the baby to help with communication, normal developmental milestones, etc.

There is also a parent report to fill out at the end of the course, which I'm supposed to mail back in a month. Lesson 2 is already in the mail, but lesson 3 won't be sent until the report from lesson 1 is submitted. Since Early Intervention hasn't started yet, I've been using the JTC materials to work with Nolan. I've been keeping a report in a word document to send along with the parent report. So far, here is what I have written for Nolan's responses to the curriculum:

Date: November 8, 2007. Packet received today. Nolan is 10 weeks old.

Games Played: Quiet Time, Patty Cake.

Notes: Nolan smiles and coos. Sometimes it is hard to get him to make eye contact when talking, but once eye contact is made he reacts by smiling. He loves “Patty Cake” when I move his arms through the clapping/patting movements. He always smiles at the end when I move his arms like they’re clapping and say “Yay!”

Early Intervention set-up meeting was today. The wrap-up meeting will be December 6, when our IFSP is put together. The date for evaluation is pending, but will be completed before December 6.

November 9: Went to a mother’s group meeting at a local church. Nolan became extremely fussy and I could not calm him. I took him outside of the room and there was a loud rock band playing in the sanctuary. Nolan quit crying and was quite happy- as long as I stayed close to the sanctuary and he could hear the music. I didn’t go inside because I didn’t want the loudness to hurt his remaining hearing, but the beat carried well to the outside hallway.

November 9-11:

Nolan has a cold. He is rather cranky but still lights up when I smile and sing to him. I usually have him on a Boppy pillow when I read to my older son so that he is close enough to hear the words.

November 12:

Nolan squealed and smiled today- not a “belly laugh” yet but as close to laughter as a 2 month old can get! He is 11 weeks old. We played “Motor Boat Motor Boat go so slow..” with his legs. He liked this activity.