[Kelly Rae]

Our sweet little preemie is 4 1/2 months adjusted and she will almost certainly be a permanent member of our family.

She is without a doubt the sweetest child I have ever cared for. She continues to have many medical challenges due to being born at 25 weeks. She is still on O2 24/7, has a apnea monitor, seizure disorder, is vision and hearing impaired, and her pt is concerned about stiffness in her arms which can be the beginings of cp. We are woking with multiple specialists trying to get all the help that is needed to help her reach her potential.

My dh said the cutest thing the other night he said if all hearing and vision impaired children were so sweet he would have learned American Sign Language the day we got married and only adopted them.

Anyone with cortical vision impaired children? What was your child's outcome? Her vision and hearing impairment interfere with her reaching many milestones. Thanks for letting me share about our little blessing.

[Lylac]

What a great update!

All of my kids are cortically blind. They CAN see, however we don't know exactly what they see. Their brain interprets things differently than a normal person.

It can be mild or severe. With glasses, patching, atropine drops or any combo of those, can improve their vision. I would ask about vision therapies. Another thing is to stimulate their vision with bright colors and black and white patterns. The Star Center here is wonderful with kids.

I can't speak for all kids, but your hubby was correct about my 4. They are such sweeties!

[athikers]

My son is blind in one eye, not due to cortical blindness, but trauma. He also uses ASL. And, he is also a complete sweetheart 99% of the time. I think blindness and sign language MUST be the reason (just kidding). But really, he is pure joy to parent most of the time.

[Withay]

My son has good vision, however due to brain injury he is deaf. The audiologist explained it as being very similar to cortical blindness in that his ears work, but his brain is unable to process the sound. He hears a tiny bit when he first wakes up and it is very quiet in the house, but as soon as everyone gets up and the day gets going he is unable to hear. Hearing aids do not work for his type of deafness (nor do cochlear implants). We communicate by using ASL.

[Linny]

What a wonderful update! You baby certainly sounds like a sweetie, that's for sure! Will you have to wait very long to find out if she's actually yours forever?

Sincerely,

Linny

[Kelly Rae]

Little G is being followed by a hearing and vision specialist from the deaf and blind school in our area. She is getting vision therapy and a light box and some special toys have been ordered to help her to want to look at and track them. She will track for just a couple minutes a day we practically stand on our head to try to get her interested visually. She is so not interested, but we will try everything if it has a possibility of helping. She had failed an OAE hearing test and had a ABR test which showed moderate hearing loss in her right ear at all tones and mild in her left ear in low to medium tones. She is waiting on a referral to ENT and after she is checked out medically then we go back for another ABR hearing test and get fit for hearing aids. I found the hearing test a big surprise because she doesn't respond to sound to such a degree I was really expecting her to be severely to profoundly deaf. Hope to find out soon don't want to miss time for language acquisition.

We had one of our kid's take almost 3 yrs to finalize and I would expect to finalize baby G before she has been with us a year. I love her alll much!