Amanda and School

Busy couple of days!  Amanda received an honor roll 

award last Thursday.  She often gets positive behavior 

recognition, but seldom realizes the same academic 

triumph.  So we were quite pleased, and of course 

attended the award ceremony.

The next day, parent teacher-teacher conferences 

were held.  Amanda is in 8th grade and rotates for 

8 periods among 7 teachers plus a speech therapist 

(4 times weekly) and an audiologist (once a week.)

Mr. Zarembka-Math         Ms. Maxwell-English                                   

Ms. Chute-Family Life         Mr. Branton-History

Mr. Tarpay-Science               Ms. Caustin-Speech & Language

                                                                  

Mrs. Gleicher-Reading

Her Adapted Physical Education teacher,  Ms. Hoffee was unavailable as was the

Audiologist, Ms. Rogan, so unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of them.  However, we maintain regular contact with them so we know how she's doing, but I would've liked pictures.

All of Amanda's core academic teachers (English, Reading, Science, History and Math) are deaf.  Since the focus of the school is on instruction through ASL, the SLP and the Audiologist support what instruction she is getting in the classroom.  

Amanda has only been activated less than four months and had NEVER EVER heard anything prior to implantation.  Hearing aids did not benefit her although she wore them diligently, especially in her early years hoping to hear something.  She began asking for an implant at age 10 and after major insurance battles, was finally approved for surgery just before she turned 14.

Both the SLP and the Audiologist have noticed improvement in speech production this school year.  And since her last mapping, we have all noticed a very positive effect on what she is able to hear.  She is increasing her accuracy and consistency in being able to distinguish between individual phonemes, words, phrases and sentences.

And she's immensely able to hear the ruckus that goes on in deaf classrooms.  In fact she sometimes acts as an interpreter for students trying to get deaf teachers attention. The student will yell out and Amanda will let the teacher know the student wants them. THAT would never have happened before.  So it's an interesting way to measure progress, but progress it is.