Speech Therapy - (session 1)

Yesterday I went to the implant centre early becuase Richard had his implant tuning as it started to sounds quite. So, instead of me sitting in that chair getting tuned up it was him. It felt weird as he's always watching and waiting for me. While he's was having his tuned up. My audiogist Carina who did my 1 month tuning spoke to me asking how I'm getting on with the implant as i spoke back she was amazed that I am using my voice more now instead of letting the interpreter voicing over for me. She was please that I able to understand her alot more now than before. Anyway after a good chat and finished setting up Richard implant it was time for me to make my way to the waiting room ready for my 3pm appointment. While i make my way Richard still havent finish becuase he had to do an hearing test and more test on the Mr borin(lipreading)etc, He did well and has improved. Also the sounds on his implant is much better now and he's happy. He don't have to go back till another year now accept going back when he gets his new freedom as he still got the old 3G cochlear.

In the waiting room, I only waited about 5 minutes my interpreter was already there waiting for me and while we sat down dyan came in an made our way to the quite rooom. This was my 1st speech therpay after I was implanted with this amazing device. Just before the implant I had Speech Therapy and was accessed on how my voice sound with alot of different tests by saying the words to pictures. Reading a sentence from a storyline. Dyan my speech therapy thought my speech sounds great but needed a little work on some areas. which we both worked together and put down targets for me to improve after the activation date. There wasn't alot to work on it was mainly missing alot of ended word while i'm talking such as 't,k,d,s' on any word like 'Back' I miss out the 'K' which it happens alot. Also my voice is quite and I need to improve the loudness.

Now, I can hear myself talk, which i couldn't really hear myself before. Now I have six 1-hour session to work on my speech every week at Ropewalk (Nottingham) First, she wanted to do the test again to see if anything improved after the implant. Which there wasa slight improvement with the loudness but not enough. Still, i have to work on the endings.

after doing the test. We worked on my loudness first as that's important to get the right voice level while i'm talking so that everyone could hear me. We started doing that by saying "Stop" We did that in 3 different volume (quite, Medium and loud) My target was to get my voice between medium and loud all the time without it dropping to a quite level... so here me saying STOP!!!! to me it sounded loud but dyan said it was still quite... after spend about 15 minutes on that... I finally said the word in the right volume more than 4 times. That the way she want me to talk all the time. So, i tried my best to read out a storyline without it going quite... Dyan thought I did it really well but some word were to quite and it need to be the same all the time, so we left it there as I've been there for almost an hour and 15 minutes, she has given me Homework for me to work on (voice volume) so, since i'm away for 2 weeks on hoilday with family. My next s.a.l.t lesson is in the first week of september!

Oh, I mentioned about the interview video that I have posted up. Richard is still working on it and he now decided to add more things to it and not yet finished it. So, it looks like i'm not going to post it up till after the 31st. There also will be another video (BIONIC Vs FREEDOM) Because I have Bionic and Richard has Freedom - we always tease each other by saying Freedom better than Bionic and Bionic better than Freedom. I have no idea why we both do that, in fact they are both the same but jutt in a different style and different brand.

Now, My brother had set up a competition for us to do while we're on hoilday and see who wins, but what make me laugh he has done a competition that doesn't invole in the implant. Its all activities like go-karting etc. :-P

so, i'll post up the video on that too " PLEASE CHEER FOR MEE!! , Us Bionic crew always the winners, lol! (well, i hope so)

that's it for me now, speak to you all soon.

HAVE A BRILLIANT SUMMER!!!

k x