- Often the biggest challenge within the first week is asking your child to wear their processors and keep magnets or coils attached to their head. The feeling of the processor and magnets will be a new sensation to your child and it is quite common for them to pull at their equipment. Do not worry. This just takes perseverance and replacing the processors and coils as soon as possible.
- Try to keep the processors on from waking up until bedtime each day. Only by wearing the processors as much as possible every day will your child be able to make sense of the sounds they are now exposed to and establish auditory pathways.
- If the equipment keeps falling off, you may want to try retention strategies such as earmoulds, huggies, toupee tape, different earhooks, headbands or a different wearing option (This is discussed later in the manual).
- If your child gets very upset when trying to put the processor on, try to distract them by giving them a toy.
- It is unusual to see any reaction to sounds within the first week following switch on, your audiologist and cochlear implant key worker will have discussed this at length and so try not to be disheartened by this. However, if your child does appear to be upset by certain sounds, it is not because they are too loud, it will just sound very strange and this is something they will learn to acclimatise to. These sounds will eventually make sense to your child.
- Always speak to your child in plain view where they can see your face and use your lip patterns to help them make sense of the sound.
- Use your child’s name frequently when you are talking to them to help them begin to recognise it.
- Try to introduce your child to sounds in their environment by pointing them out and encouraging them to listen.
- If the processor does not appear to be working, always change the batteries first. If this does not help, try changing the cable. If this still does not solve the situation, please contact your cochlear implant company or the cochlear implant team for further advice.
- Sometimes it helps to sit and look over the equipment and the manual when your child has gone to bed. There is lots of information to take in. Within the first week it is usually most important to charge and change the batteries, use the drybox and change the programmes.
- Contact your cochlear implant key worker if you need any help or advice during the first week, they are there to support you.
- DO NOT make sounds behind your child’s back to see if they respond. Sound has no meaning initially and they are also unlikely to have heard it. They need to ‘see’ sound in order to be able to make sense of it. Again, this is something your cochlear implant key worker will advise you on during rehabilitation sessions and will practice this with your child.
