Hearing tests for kids with SN

[bri276]

DD has a chromosome disorder that is known to cause hearing loss. She also has cognitive and severe speech delays, but learns sign language very well. We have had her hearing tested many times. When she was a newborn they tested the nerve and it was fine. They've also done many of the kind where various toys pop up and she had headphone on while they try to see what she can hear...I have to say they never seem very accurate, but always show a mild hearing loss.

I am certain she has mild hearing loss and concerned it might be more like moderate. There are just a lot of things that make me think this, like not responding to me speaking at normal volume when she doesn't see me, speaking really loudly herself, the specific sounds she doesn't make with her own speech (for example, her "hi" sounds like "eye", like she can't hear the softness of the H, and she really doesn't pronounce F, but when I sit with her and show her how to form her lips into an F, she can do it...)

I know it's hard to judge accurately whether a kid can hear based on behaviors, especially a kid with other issues, but DH and I just agree that it seems like her hearing is a problem.

Are there any tests that are more accurate than the standard ones they've been giving her? Is "mild loss" ever treated with an aid?

ETA: She's 5 yrs old.

[elmh23]

My ds has a speech delay and for us to transfer into the public school system they did a booth test. They would play a sound in a corner and he had to turn his head the right way and then the person outside the booth would play the toy. A lady sat with him in the booth and kept him looking at her by playing a game. It worked well.

[bri276]

Yeah- those are they ones she's had several times over the years and show a mild loss. She also has mini tantrums and is pretty scared during them and I see them marking down that she's responding to the noise when I don't think she really is (I've sat on both sides of the window and talked with the audiologists while they did the testing) and I don't feel ilke it gave a really accurate result. Or if it did, why can't/don't we do anything about the mild loss except to say, "She has mild loss, see you in a year!"

[2boyzmama]

First of all, YES they can and do aid mild loss. But, if it's a conductive loss, it's hard to aid sometimes. Plus, I know she has some structural defects related to her palate, right? How is her internal and external ear structure?

The problem we ran into with Connor was that his hearing loss was purely conductive and variable, and he had malformed external and internal ears, so a "traditional" behind-the-ear hearing aid wouldn't work for him. So he walked around for 3.5 years with mild-moderate fluctuating conductive loss and I was pulling my hair out hating that we couldn't do anything about it.

We found a solution this summer. http://www.phonak.com/us/b2c/en/prod...rs/isense.html It's a personal FM System called an iSense Micro. He wears it like a hearing aid, and his teacher (or us) wear a transmitter. Speech sounds are projected above environmental noise so he hears them just a bit louder than the other sounds around him. Amplifying all the sounds wouldn't have been helpful to him because he has auditory processing issues, but amplifying just speech sounds has had a remarkable impact on his Apraxia.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...9&l=28493d56ec Here's pictures when we first got it.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...e&id=634508169 It didn't fit him well because of the shape of his external ear (missing a lot of cartilage and also has a very small ear canal) so we did get him fitted with a mold. It works much better with the mold, but still falls out multiple times a day)

SO...that's what we've done to help with mild fluctuating conductive loss.

Besides a booth test, the only other test is an ABR, which it sounds like you've already had? (you said nerve test?) You could also ask to talk to an educational audiologist, a good one will be able to differentiate between mild hearing loss, auditory processing disorders, and distractibility in the environment of the classroom.

[bri276]

That's very interesting, thank you.

Her ears are normal AFAIK except that her canals are teeeeeny tiny. Like, they'd have to put her under sedation to use a microscope to really see inside them. It's worthless to even try to look with a normal otoscope, we have no idea if she's even had ear infections (but we don't think she has because she's never really shown symptoms).

I do think it's conductive. Something similar to what Connor has might be helpful for her, I'll print that out and bring it to the next....who do I bring it to? Ped, ENT? Another specialist?