Zemiel's Results

Well, I've been putting it off and I've also asked Sharlene to write this post, but she's refused to do it too. So it falls back to me to let you know what is going on with our Zemiel. Sharlene has been to Brisbane twice this year. She has found out some useful information about the boy, and some things that took some adjustment. Let me start at the beginning....

Once upon a time a boy was born to a family in Murgon...whoops, too far back.

Let's try again. 

Zemiel had a series of tests done earlier this year which culminated with a report being sent to us stating that he is loosing his hearing slowly and ultimately he will become deaf again. We should, therefore, continue to sign with him and pursue means of giving him signing support at school. The thought that he would loose his hearing hasn't been easy to take. There was also a perplexed debate between specialists as to why he hasn't learned to talk more than he has. Theoretically, he should have caught up by now. While all these specialists were left scratching their heads, Zemiel, Zekiah and Sharlene came back home. 

On the most recent trip, he again met with a plethora of specialists, sometimes twice. One of the results was that we were given the option to label him as either Autistic or with Executive Function Disorder. We also discovered that Zemiel's apparent continued loss of hearing was connected to the new mapping program  sent out by Med El. We reverted to the old program and everything seems a lot better now and Zemiel is responding better as well. Another result was that Zemiel is getting very limited information from his left implant and may be a candidate for a second operation. Instead of the Med El device, he would be receiving a nucleus processor. We'll keep you posted about that. 

So you can see that it hasn't been smooth sailing for our family yet this year. We are still not sure if he will be able to go to the SDA school here in Mackay due to funding. Who knows, perhaps with ASD funding he might be able to get more support at the school. The disparity between funding of state schools and private schools is astounding. In a state school he would receive an aide, an Auslan model as well as the teacher. In a private school, he would have the teacher and a part time aide.

I'll let you know more as the information comes in.