Need a very visual Phonics program for kids with cochlear implants

[WTMindy]

My sil has twin girls who have cochlear implants and she is looking for a phonics program that will help them. Her friend used ABeka, but the flashcards are ridiculously expensive and she is wondering what else is out there. Also, are there any suggestions from anyone else who has been there/done that?

 

Thanks!

[Love_to_Read]

My first thought was LiPS, but I very much doubt that it's cheaper. :(

[WTMindy]

I can see that I've been out of the stage where I pay attention to phonics programs for awhile. What is LiPS? :-)

[Plink]

LiPS is a phonics program from Lindamood Bell. It would be perfect for your nieces. It has instruction explaining the differences between letters through vision and touch, not just hearing.

 

For example /d/ and /t/ look exactly the same when a hearing impaired child watches your mouth, but if they place a hand on their throat and try to make each sound, they will learn the difference.

 

Hmm... I'm not sure if I am communicating clearly. Check out the website I linked for a better explanation.

[dsmama]

She also may want to look at some of Dianne Craft's materials, which are very visual and right-brain oriented, esp the phonics flashcards. These would help supplement an existing program. I will be using these with my son with Down syndrome, who has some mild hearing issues as well.

[WTMindy]

Thank you very much! I will pass these ideas on to her!!

[PeterPan]

Our speech therapist has my ds starting Earobics, which is software to work on auditory discrimination and processing (sequencing, syllabication, initial and final consonants, rhyming, etc.).

[Sorbie]

Our speech therapist has my ds starting Earobics, which is software to work on auditory discrimination and processing (sequencing, syllabication, initial and final consonants, rhyming, etc.).

 

:iagree: We used this with my oldest who was implanted 14 years ago. We have also used StarFall.com and good old McGuffey Primer and Readers. This is a resource we just found out about which I think she might find helpful http://www.hearingjourney.com/index.cfm

 

-Amber

[Lecka]

I tried HearBuilder (a similar product to Earobics) with my son, and he was not able to do it.

 

He learned to hear the speech sounds at speech therapy. (He just had issues with this NOT related to his hearing.)

 

Of these options, Earobics and HearBuilder are both something where you buy a cd. Lips is often done by speech therapists. My son's SLPs didn't "do" Lips, they individualized his therapy, but they used similar techniques.

 

However his hearing was good, so I am not sure if speech therapists would be the right person to see.

 

IF they are young Kindergarten age you might also want to have them do some phonemic awareness program -- things like sorting words by what the first sound is, etc. If you search "amazon phonemic awareness" the programs that come up are for kids who are pre-school or Kindergarten age and might be worth trying. My son could not do those programs -- hence trying HearBuilder and then speech therapy. They might not be appropriate but maybe worth ruling out.

 

(aka he could not tell the first sound in a word, and had severe articulation errors partially caused by not hearing some consonants clearly, and had extreme trouble learning letter sounds b/c the sounds weren't distinct to him in the first place)

 

But going from least instense/specialized to most: phonemic awareness books are first, then HearBuilder/Earobics, then Lips/speech therapy is what I am familiar with.

 

Even Headsprout is supposed to be very good for letter sounds and phonemic awareness, and I have heard good things about it, and it is pretty visual (I think?), but my son was not able to complete the first 5 lessons that were part of the free sample. I hear that people who like Starfall.com also lihe Headsprout, and I thought it looked good, except it was too hard for my son/over his head. I think I would consider them something to look at prior to looking at Earobics, and if they don't look like they will be adequate, move on to Earobics (or HearBuilder -- they are competing products but when I researched them seemed to be equivalent -- I think we tried a demo of Earobics and my son couldn't do it, then I bought HearBuiilder anyway.

Edited June 20, 2012 by Lecka

[PeterPan]

Lecka, maybe things have changed? The current editions of Earobics have levels and do the things you're calling phonemic awareness. My ds is *3* and can do the activities. They're extremely basic. She typically waits till 4, but he seems ready. And it's an interactive computer-driven game format, not an audio cd. She sat with him and showed me how to do it with him to use it as a language-building exercise as well. So it's not just that you do it but how you use it.

[Lecka]

Oh, no. I sat with him.

 

He was just that bad.

 

Only one year ago -- whatever demo was up, and Hear Builder brand new.

 

He was just extremely bad.

 

His articulation age was 2 years 11 months when he started private speech at age 6. He never picked up a huge number of consonants.

 

If Earobics worked for everyone -- no one would use Lips.

 

But I am not even sure that he had the problem Earobics is designed for.... his sound discrimination was very bad, but I am not sure that is what Earobics and HearBuilder are really supposed to address.

 

I happened to observe during a period where he spent multiple hours over 3 weeks on the difference between s, sh, and ch. They were all the same to him. He had multiple sets of consants and blends and stuff that way. Just all the same to him.

 

So -- with that all a haze, he couldn't begin to do phonemic awareness consistently.

 

But no -- all the activities were above his ability level when I tried it.

 

He couldn't begin to do them.

 

At the same time Earobics and HearBuilder do work for many people. So I am not sure what the deal was with my son -- just that it was too hard and they could work at his (lower) level at speech therapy.

 

edit -- his phonemic awareness was also very poor -- but I am not sure to what extent the sound discrimination (I see it called auditory discrimination) is a foundational skill, vs. being something you learn at the same time.

 

I promise though -- I made good faith efforts, sitting with him, my mom sitting with him to see if it was just me, to try these programs. (Though -- I did just do the demo of Earobics and bought HearBuilder.) I also thought that using manipulatives helped him a huge amount and he had manipulatives in speech, and there are just no manipulatives with a computer. (Dragging things with a mouse is not the same.) He doesn't need manipulatives now, but for those skills the magic of multisensory learning was very important, and I do think necessary for him. Also -- he was being taught how to form all these words and was not producing many of these sounds and was barely stimulable of them... so he needed that at the same time, and that is really a speech therapy thing I guess, that no one would expect to be taught by Earobics. But I didn't realize that at the time.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Lecka