Mobile Mission team 2012. We send a "sin Chao" to our director, Paige Stringer!
Lunch time with Thuy and her fabulous "chef" at the Thuan center in Lai Thieu, Vietnam.
At the Din Ky Hotel, a woman makes an offering and a prayer at the Mother Buddha shrine.
Breakfast by the river...coffee, Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk?
A barge goes by. Is the tide going in or out?
Thuy, the director of the Thuan Center, Lai Thieu, Vietnam with Judy Simser and Lea Watson.
Judy Simser doing what she loves to do - teaching teachers how to coach parents of children who are deaf how to learn to listen and talk with SPOKEN LANGUAGE.
Lea finds her 'look alike' in the Vietnamese book. Quan, his mom, and his AV therapist, Binh, think it's very funny! Lea wonders why they chose this particular story for the day she happened to observe this session?
“Auditory-Verbal Practice Teaching Children with Hearing Loss to listen and speak”
After breakfast by the river, we make our way to the Thuan Center in Lai Thieu.
Judy and I photograph the beautiful garden flowers while we wait for the driver from the center to come with Nguyen Thi Kim Sang, our interpreter.
Judy and I each watch a 1-1 AVT. I see the cutest 3 ½ year old boy, Quan, with his mom and their therapist Binh. I see Quan interacting with a car, a box of animals, and bubbles. I am happy that Binh sings a lot through her 45 min session. They read a book about a grandmother and when they ask; “Where’s the grandma?” The boy points to me! Ha ha! I have to see what this grandma looks like in this Vietnamese book. Not bad! She is a feisty one who talks to the animals! I like her. I like how much this little guy like reading about this grandma! Not bad at all!
Judy starts off the instruction/coaching with her brilliant powerpoint; “Auditory-Verbal Practice Teaching Children with Hearing Loss to listen and speak”
Judy emphasizes: the ears are just the way in! The baby’s brain is prewired to learn spoken language through listening. Early brain access to the central AUDITORY pathways is a precondition for the normal development of speech, spoken language, and literacy. Humans ARE BORN WITH A PREFERENCE FOR LISTENING TO SPEECH rather than non speech sounds. We need to make this point clear.
We need to help these teachers understand the immediacy of getting hearing aids on early, make sure the children wear the hearing aids all waking hours, and that they check the hearing aids at each session. We need to start early to develop auditory neural connections to develop the auditory brain.
One main point Judy makes is that we need to look at the person we are speaking with and have only one person talking at one time.
Judy and I demonstrate sound conditioning, listening, waiting, responding, and using the mom as the model. We invite the therapists to role play with us!
All of a sudden Judy says: “Hey – no pointing up! You’re not listening with the ceiling, you use your ears to listen with your brain! Help the parents point to where the sound goes – into the ear!” Judy makes it all so much fun. All the therapists laugh.
Judy can tell some of the therapists are too quiet and one is very shy. She instructs: “Learn to be extrovert and do this in front of everybody. We are going to be practicing all week. It is good to make mistakes. We want to teach the child who is deaf that it is ok to make mistakes. When you make a mistake, that is when you start learning to do it the other way, the correct way. We want you to take risks, be willing to make a mistake so you can learn from it.”
Judy teaches them some Mandarin in order to show them how (1.)repetition is so important for the deaf child who is in the early stages of learning to listen
and then using a (2.) glance toward item and (3) only touch the thing as a last effort to get them to understand.
We try to get specific. There are many different ways to learn a “two item memory”. They all have to be used in therapy, so the child can easily do all of them. We expect a child in AVT to be listening at a “two item memory level” by 6 months and to be able to say most of the vowels, and b, m, h, in words and utterances. That's a lot to do in 6 months! These kids can do it, if we teach the teachers to teach them with the right kind of EXPECTATION ( and goals ).
We progress from easy to more difficult. That is why checklists of the stages of Listening, Language, Speech, Cognition, and Communication are needed. We need to start at the beginning and move through the typical stages.
Judy encourages them to wake the children up from their nap and asks that they put their hearing aids on before they wash their face and get them ready for snack. we see a huge tangle of hearing aids from the 40 or so kids who were napping. They explain that because we have all the therapist in training, another person is helping with the children. We still wonder why this person has not been trained in the care of hearing aids.
Each child receives a bowl of noodle soup - Pho! The therapists have asked ahead of time for help with snack. we say; "Talk to them!" We see them just hand soup to each kid without saying a word! We prompt interest in the soup, that it is hot/cold, the names of what is in the soup, and all that great natural language.
We observe more therapy. I have to jump right in to the session with suggestions. We have fun being active with the ball - using all the verbs a ball can prompt. This therapist I am observing is very cooperative for me to make suggestions as she teaches. The six therapists observing nod their heads when I offer a more natural way of engaging the child.
We gather again in the classroom for me to deliver a wrap up session on assessment and planning. Why do we do assessments? This is very basic. I am used to so much being available to me in English; standardized tests, developmental checklists, books, easy to access references, these therapists do not have access to all of that. I give them what I know is available in Vietnamese. I try to show how though a little more time consuming in the beginning, it makes my job easier and more efficient when I base my lessons on developmental checklists.
The children finish school at 4. My lecture from 4-5 pm is outrageously NOISY with background motorbikes, kids calling, and chaos in the courtyard outside the classroom where I try to teach these therapists. I smile when I see the children peeing in the shuttered windows.
The school provides us with a lovely supper; bok choy, rice, and beans and carrots - great for this plant strong hungry person.
Judy and I are lucky that the school driver agrees to take us downtown to the super market to get some needed items. We see a busy town! This Lai Thuie is on the river - very pretty down town area. One can see the French influence in this little village with the shuttered windows, lovely gardens, and people selling baguettes. It is hot today, many men drive motor bikes and hang around the sidewalks without shirts. We have a tough time finding the Vinatex mart, but when we do we really enjoy the AC and finding all the STUFF we want!
On the way back to the bus ( the bus driver just waited for us - so nice) we see a little boy grilling meat on a little hibachi on the sidewalk, learning early how his family cooks their Monday night supper.
back at the Din Ky, Judy and I take a swim in the beautiful pool. We cannot really sit outside long because we fear mosquitoes and what they can do if they BITE us.
We are thinking our paige Stringer, the director of Global Foundation for Children with hearing loss who had her knee surgery today.....hoping she is doing well now in recovery. We miss her as we teach at the Thuan Center.
Downtown: see the wires! Vietnam = wires and this is a tame view!
See the supermarket behind this mom & baby? See the baby all dressed for 100F!
This is the way the gentlemen ride in 100F!
Sunset on the Saigon River in Lai Thieu.
Oooh, a pretty kitty...a friend for Bandit?
Here's a friend for Brody, Bootsie, Jewel, and Scooter!
Handsome rooster struts his stuff in the center of town near the 'super market'.
Can you find, the rooster, the kitty, the dog, and my dear friend, Judy? Judy is asking where the super market is. We could not find it. it was on the second floor above the out door market - not where we thought it might be!
Fresh fruit all around - do delicious!
The Buddhista shrine right outside my hotel room. She is pouring water into the lilies.
See the topiary dragons for the "year of the Dragon" and I am a DRAGON! What a good year for me to travel in Southeast Asia.
The swimming pool that Judy and I dive into every day!
The view from our breakfast table!
