Interdisciplinary functional assessment on Eikholt
"Silje" is 9 years old and cannot speak. She was born with a chromosomal defect that makes her both hard of hearing and partially sighted, as well as several other learning and developmental difficulties that prevent her from walking upright without help. Despite the challenges life has presented her with, Silje has developed into a curious and happy girl. Her world doesn't look like ours - she explores it primarily through her tactile senses, i.e. her hands, and only to a limited extent through sight and hearing.
Last year, Silje and her parents met with a communication development expert from Eikholt, Kari Schjøll Brede. This started a collaboration between her parents, her regional and local support services, Signo Competence Centre and Eikholt Resource Centre for the Deafblind. This work resulted this week in the realisation of a comprehensive course with an interdisciplinary focus from experts in vision, hearing, communication and neuropsychology. Signo Competence Centre contributed to the course days with neuropsychologist Lynn Skei and special education teacher Anni Lise Ellefsen. From Eikholt, Rolf Mjønes and Magnus Tollefsrud participated with hearing as a professional strength, visual educators Line Hovland and Ann-Britt Johansson and Kari Schjøll Brede with their focus on opportunities for language development.
At Eikholt's newly established clinic for Sight and Hearing, this type of assessment has been facilitated by installing a camera in the room where the work with Silje took place. This allows us to limit the number of professionals in this room, and allows those who need to observe the tests to do so in a separate observation room with a large screen and video link to the test room. The camera is motorised and can be controlled remotely by the observers. This adds to the range of modern solutions that have come to Eikholt and is part of our focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and the need to see vision and hearing in context.
The outcome of the three-day course was a new understanding of Silje's potential and many ideas about how the professionals from NKDB, of which Eikholt is a part, can continue to work together to help Silje. Already this week, together with the parents and Lynn Skei from Signo, we had a video meeting with the head of the PPD centre for the region, two teachers from the school and a consultant from the Regional Centre for Deafblindness. The meeting summarised the results of the investigation, with input initially for courses in the home municipality, as well as possible options and what help is available for Silje, her family and not least the school and the local support system.
Eikholt is proud to be a vibrant arena that helps to develop and disseminate expertise on combined visual and hearing impairment to authorities as well as relatives and other professionals. We look forward to new "cases" like Silje, and know that the work with her has only just begun.