Personal FM System

[PatchChild]

Does anyone have any experience with kids using a personal FM system in school, either for hearing loss or auditory processing?

DS is three and enrolled in the local integrated preschool. Overall, they're doing a great job of meeting his needs. Very small class size, great acoustically treated room, lovely teacher. One thing that came up at his IEP meeting was the use of an FM system. I talked about using a tower for things like circle time and stories, just to add volume and clarity to language over the background noise of seven three year olds. Now, the school is talking all excited about the personal FM system they want to use, and what is the make of his hearing aids so that they can get the right boots to use with them.

Not that I want to complain about a school gaining ahead and spending money for equipment for just my son, but I really don't think a personal system is a good choice for a three year old. Especially one who isn't great at reporting about the state of his hearing aids. The first two days he came home with only one aid turned on. Um, if he's not going to report that, and if the teachers don't notice that they only turned one on after nap, wouldn't finicky FM equipment be worse? I can just imagine the teacher forgetting to turn the mike off and my son having to listen to her chat while he's off playing blocks.

Thoughts? Experiences?

[~cassie]

We are not at the age of an FM system yet. I asked about it and all of the people on his team--teachers, audiologists, deaf educator, speech therapists, all recommended not having it yet. The main factors for him to not have it now is b/c it is a small class size and preschool classes do centers, have the kids close to them, etc. Right now we are only doing preferential seating(him by the teacher/speaker) and making sure the classroom has good acoustics(which it does). We are looking at starting an FM system in kindergarten.

[2boyzmama]

We use one. An iSense Micro. Connor (3.5, fluctuating conductive hearing loss, repeated infections, apraxia, auditory processing issues) doesn't wear aids, so it's a little untraditional, but it's working GREAT!! He wears it like a hearing aid, behind the ear, the teacher wears a mic. We tried a wall-mounted system first, but it just made everything louder, creating more background noise for him to filter. The iSense puts the teacher's voice above all background noise and right to his ear. It has helped his behavior, attentiveness, and access to speech sounds tremendously.

He was wearing it unilateral as a trial, and since it's working so well (and since we got insurance to pay for it!) we ordered another which should get here this week so he'll be bilateral.

It's very obvious when it isn't working. They called me one day saying he was n't responding well and turned out his batteries were dead. So we can tell.

I'd say get it, if it isn't helpful yet, try next year. But at least the scholo will have it.

[missnoodlesmom]

THe HI room that I works in has an FM system that is wireless and goes right into the kids hearing aid. The teachers wear small head sets with the actual transmittor that is worn on your belt and and you can "beam" the kids at their frequency. I think it works great.....but I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about. I only push in 2x a week so I wear the equipment but don't know a ton about it (make, model, etc.). I will say, though, that a couple times the system was not working (once it needed maintenence and once it hadn't been charged the night before) and using the towers wasn't nearly as efficient or helpful for the kids. The nice thing about the wireless systems are that 1. different teachers can have different kids tuned to their frequency so it makes it nice during centers/small group instructions so everyone isn't hearing one teacher blasting over the speakers.

HTH! ( I really could have been answering something yo uweren't even asking, but I hope not) I'm really glad you have such an open and communicative school.

edited to add: I work in Preschool Special Education services. I'm surprised that anyone was told an FM system wasn't for preschool. I guess it's different in every school system!

[PatchChild]

So many opinions, thank you. Right now, I'm just waiting to hear back from the Audiologist the school has on as a consultant, and we will see what comes of it.

[ElsieLC]

My DD just started preschool and we haven't introduced the FM at school yet. But she's had personal FM receivers and we have had our own transmitter for about a year now and I think ALL families of HOH kids should have their own FM system! It cut down on MY exercise--when we go out in public, I never have to run to catch up to her to tell her to stop or slow down. She can hear me in the supermarket, in the library (no longer do I have to yell across the childrens' section), in the park, in the stroller. And we can have real conversations in the car.

DD (moderate-to-severe hearing loss) is not quite 3 and while she doesn't always report if her hearing aids are off (she gets it about 80% of the time), she will sometimes report if one of us forgets to turn off the FM transmitter ("I hear a radio!"). We sometimes deliberately "forget" to turn on or off a piece of equipment and help her figure out what's wrong.

There is a short learning curve for the FM. We tried generic boots (DD managed to take them apart) but liked the integrated boots from the manufacturer.

[julesmck]

Hi,

My 8-yr old has just been diagnosed with an auditory processing delay. The audiologist doesn't think he requires a personal FM system because he's currently in a very small class (only four other children). However, before we got the diagnosis, we were considering sending him to a school in which the class size maxes out at 15. I am waiting to hear from the audiologist as to what type of assistive technology my son would need in order to thrive in a class of that size, but in the meantime, I wanted to see if anyone has experience with personal FM systems for a child who doesn't wear a hearing aid and who changes classes (teachers) throughout the day. Does the child take the FM transmitter from one teacher and give it to the next as he switches periods?

Thanks.