The Coppit Family Daily News

We just got back from three days in Madison, WI. We were there to help Tina Greico with her research studying young kids with bilateral cochlear implants. Christopher was played different sounds, and she would look to see which direction he would look (left or right), which would tell her which side he thought the sound was coming from. Unfortunately Christopher was pretty non-responsive. I’m guessing that he’s just too young… He’s only heard with 2 ears for 6 months.

She also had Christopher do another study where he would listen to some made-up word and look at a made-up shape. After seeing the word and shape a lot, they would then show him the shape and say the wrong word. Here they were trying to see if he learned the new word or not, based on his response to the wrong word. He did pretty well on this study, since he is very good at focusing on pictures.

Overall we weren’t that impressed with Madison. It’s a university town, but seemed kinda run-down and yucky. The main drag, State Street, had a lot of ethnic restaurants, and the capitol building was nice. We also got down to the university terrace to listen to some live bands. It was kinda odd to leave Virginia to hear bluegrass, though. One other observation: folks in Wisconsin love their beer and brats—I think I gained 2 lbs in two days eating everything under the sun.

We spent last week on the outer banks at the SIGBeer 2007 reunion. There were something like 12 adults and 15 kids in one big beach house. We had a great time… it was good to catch up with people, some of whom I haven’t seen in several years. Christopher was the perfect age to start to enjoy the beach, even if the water was freezing cold. He started to warm up to the other kids some, although I’m sure they didn’t notice.