[2boyzmama]

Connor had a hearing test yesterday in preparation for our appt on Friday with his specialist. This is the "remind me again why we aren't aiding him?" appointment.

There were several no-shows, so we were able to take our time and get a very thorough test on him, using probes, head phones, sound field, and bone conduction. There's a reason we used all four...probes may be artificially inflating his results by opening his extremely narrow ear canals (he has atresia); head phones may be deflating the results by the pressure collapsing what tiny canals he does have; sound field is difficult because he doesn't localize sound and we don't know which ear he hears it in. If we were to aid him, he would require a bone conductive aid, so I really wanted a complete test with a bone conductive aid on.

He did really well!! He was extremely cooperative, very reliable, and didn't seem to tire.

He still showed the typical loss he's always had at 250-500 Hz, it averaged about 30-35 dB. Between 1000-8000 Hz he had 15-25, which is fine. When we put the bone conduction on him his loss at 250-500 jumped up to only 5 dB which is threshold for that type of aid!!!

:And his reactions with the bone condution were very different...with the probes and head phones he reacts only slightly, and seldom does he try to localize, and when he did try to localize, he often got it wrong initially (i.e. turned right instead of left) (this is his behavior at home, too, he usually shows some sign that he heard the noise, but he doesn't seem able to localize it) With the bone conduction he immediately responded, and localized every time.

:

SO..what does all this mean? Well, this is probably the absolute best his hearing will ever be...right now there is no fluid, no wax, no infection, no swelling to compress his canals, etc (although on the left he did not pass the DPOAE, and we again couldn't get a tympanogram on him) BUT, the loss he's showing is not in the range of speech sounds, so aiding him might not benefit anything. At least not in speech development. It will probably help him be more aware of sounds around him, but the real question is what is there to gain?

Well, I guess another question is what is the harm? Nothing. Except the expense of a bone conductive aid (insurance covers it), and the hassle of getting him to wear it (might be difficult since he'll have to wear it with a soft band

The important thing is that he is responding well to ASL, so he IS communicating with us, and for now we're okay with using ASL. Heck, if he never learns to talk, I'm still okay with it, I just don't ever want to say "what if we had tried an aid?" You know?

Uggh... I wish that he either had no hearing loss, or a worse hearing loss, because this "on the bubble" stuff stinks

:

 

[momtoalexsarah]

Sounds like a hard one really. His loss is in a different area then Megans - her loss is 10-15db in the ranges that used for speech, but her 250-500hz are only a 10db loss. Megan still picks up the background noise almost always (this is also a sensory issue for her - she hates loud noise of any kind)
And yet we often have to repeate ourslelves a little louder to get her to respond.
What are the chances that the atrisia will improve with time (megans is very mild and only an issue when they are doing the ear tubes or having to clean the gunk out manualy

 

[2boyzmama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by momtoalexsarah Sounds like a hard one really. His loss is in a different area then Megans - her loss is 10-15db in the ranges that used for speech, but her 250-500hz are only a 10db loss. Megan still picks up the background noise almost always (this is also a sensory issue for her - she hates loud noise of any kind) And yet we often have to repeate ourslelves a little louder to get her to respond. What are the chances that the atrisia will improve with time (megans is very mild and only an issue when they are doing the ear tubes or having to clean the gunk out manualy

I find that not only do I have to speak louder than normal to get him to respond to me (if he's not looking) but I also have to repeat my spoken words if I'm not using the sign. For example, tonight my arms were full, so I was only talking, not signing. I told him to get his shoe for me (which was on the ground in front of me) and he picked up his drink cup instead. "Cup" and "shoe" don't sound anything alike...he was using context clues to know that I wanted him to pick something up (we were cleaning up before bed) but he didn't seem to know that I had said "shoe". Sometimes he mixes up words that DO sound similar, like I said once "do you want some water?" and he turned and pointed at "brother". I assume he didn't udnerstand water, thought I said brother... I also have found that I've adopted a lot of the Deaf culture ways of getting attention...clapping hands, stomping my foot, or flickering lights. He just doesn't seem to respond much any other way.

His atresia is already better than it was at birth...for the first 10 months no one could see in either of his ear canals. Then once the rampant infections were under control (so therefore no swelling), we can now see about half of his ear drum on his right and sometimes a sliver of it on the left (but usually can't see anything on the left...and remember his left ear drum is only about half the size it should be anyway) Even if the atresia won't ever get any better than it is right now, no dr would even consider fixing it until he's at least age 4, probably more like 5 or 6.

Sigh... I'm sitting here looking at the "speech banana" and trying to make an educated decision...

 

[lightheart]

Look up some info on reverse slope hearing loss or low frequency loss if you haven't already done so.

here's 2 links that looked decent with a simple search, the 1st link is a little more technical than the 2nd, I don't know how a conductive aid would factor in.
http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/...2003-11_04.asp
http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/artic...slopeshort.htm

You can see our little guys latest (aug) banana in my siggy link album titled hearing loss He wears BTE Phonak extra 211

 

[mamaverdi]