You may remember that when we started this whole journey, the kind souls at AVUK assessed Alice just after her implant. This is obviously key so we all had a baseline against which to measure her. At the time, Alice came out with a combined hearing/speaking age of 1 year 3 months (we now know that getting 1 year 3 months is like getting an A in your GCSE maths – you just have to turn up). That said, at the time it gave us hope.

So 6 months on, how has Alice progressed? She was assessed again on Monday, 6 months to the day after her first test. Clever old Alice is now at 1 year 11 months. Crucially, this means she has progressed by 8 months in a 6 month period – The Gap Is Narrowing!!!. You could look at it another way – 6 months ago, Alice had no hearing and no language at all. She now speaks and understands on a par with a 1year 11 month old. That can’t be bad, can it?

The pressure is on though to keep this pace up. Not so easy now Alice is at school and I am running my own business from home. AV time is at a premium these days. That said, we all do our bit. As we long ago discovered, AV becomes a way of life rather than just therapy you go along to. Even Joseph has picked up some of the tricks. We took him along with us to AV the day before Christmas Eve – he was so excited to see what went on there. Unfortunately, snow and the exodus for Christmas meant the hour journey took 3.5 and, try as they did, AV couldn’t wait for us any longer. Joseph, in particular, was very sad. That said, he’ll get his chance again soon. Congratulations to Rosie (Alice’s AV Therapist) on your Cert AV – truth be known, I never knew you didn’t have it anyway.

Joseph tries his best though. A little snippet of him teaching Alice to say ‘Zoo’. Joseph says he’s sorry for picking his nose and ruining the video.

I have struggled to find any downside to what Alice has achieved so far since her switch on. Her language and comprehension have come on infinitely faster than we ever hoped for. At her 6 month post-switch-on review, Alice received glowing reports from her TODs and SLTs. We are happy parents.

After our last appointment at AV, we have been tasked with introducing more verbs to Alice’s vocabulary so she can begin to make sentences from the countless nouns she now knows. In true AV fashion, this involves finding books and games which pose a ‘problem’ (AV are very big on problems). For example, one little book Alice has tells the story of a little boy looking in all the places around Grandma’s farm for some eggs. Behind every door is another animal, but no eggs, so every page is introduced with “where ‘s the eggs?”. Alice, being the bright spark she is, picked this up very quickly and now spends her days wandering around the house looking for things..stopping..shrugging her shoulders..and pronouncing “where’s the ball, mouse, dog, cat mummy, daddy etc.” (delete as appropriate).  I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but there are only so many times in the day you can be asked “Where’s the ball” before you start going mad. The irony is not lost on me. I need to teach her something else to say soon or I think it’s the asylum for me.

I have to say that AV has been a revelation to us. We have ditched all Alice’s other formal SLT in favour of their approach. Everyone we have met there has been an inspiration and the progress Alice has made since starting there has, in our eyes at least, been prolific. Never expect AV to tell you that you are doing brilliantly – there’s always that sense that there is more you could do. They set their sights very high and expect every child to progress well. Herein lies one of the key differences with their approach. Most other SLTs we have met take a much more ‘gently gently’ approach to SLT. AV don’t accept second best. They are the only people who expect Alice to catch up with her hearing peers in very short order, rather than hope that she will. And there’s the difference – hope versus expectation. It’s not for everyone, but for us and, most importantly Alice, it is a blessing.