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Hi KerryMum, you really want to know exactly what his hearing loss is in terms of decibels. For eg, my dd3 doesn't hear anything below 60db in her right ear so she is classed a having a moderate loss that side, the other side she has no hearing they can measure so that is classed as a profound loss. The level of deafness will dictate what hearing aids are best for that type of loss. If it's any help my dd3 has spirit 3's for her moderate loss, they are a digital aid and seem to be pretty good. You need to ask if they are going to put different settings on the aid for different situations, for eg you might have a setting that you use at home and one for noisy places iyswim.
They should go through changing batteries, checking the aids are working correctly and general maintenance with you. We got a little set that had a puffer, battery checker, drying tablets etc in when we were first given the aids. They should also be giving you hints on how to deal with getting your ds used to them.
I would also say have a look at the national deaf childrens society (NDCS) site, there's loads of stuff on there.
I think its best to guided by your audiologist about which hearing aid is best.
My son has Opticon spirit 2 hearing both ears. They are not as powerful as spirit 3 as his hearing loss is mild. My son's hearing levels fluculate wildly. His hearing loss varies between 50 and 25 db.
Generally with children they are issued with digital hearing aids. The great thing about digital hearing aids is that they programmed for the child's loss.
Digital hearing aids automatically adjust for volume so that your child does not get blasted with noise in a noisey room, but can hear quiet sounds in a quiet room. There is no danger of your child's ears being damaged by fiddling about. The only switches that are on my son's hearing aids are "DM" (direction microphone, normal on setting), "T" setting (ie. he uses it when using a induction loop at a theatre or using the telephone) and "O" for off.
In the UK children can have some really funky ear moulds. Although I would make sure your son chooses the design with care. I foolishly let my son choose a picture of Jake from the Tweenies when he was four. Unfortunately at the age of six and half he has outgrown the Tweenies and some of the kids at school have teased him. In the UK they don't replace ear moulds unless the child has out grown them.
I imagine that they will take impressions for ear moulds and it will take a couple of weeks to make the ear moulds. Once the ear moulds are made the audiologist will show you how to care for the hearing aids.
For example I wash the ear moulds once a week in warm soapy water. Youdonotwashthehearingaid. I use the puffer to get water out of the tubes and I dry the ear moulds in the airing cupboard. If you do not wash the ear moulds they will get smelly and your child will have itchy ears.
Does your son suffer with ezcema? If so, it might be worth asking for non silcone ear moulds, although I think that the non silcone ear moulds are boring unfortunately.
eczema hasn't flared up for a few years now. that is good to know about automatically adjusting. digital is sounding good.
did you both find it hard for your dc to get used to them? audiographer originally told me they don't like to use for unilateral loss as it can be hard to get used to in children. But he really is getting bad. I'm almost dreading it if they retest tomorrow as I assume they will
We started with my son wearing the hearing aids for small periods of time, literally five minutes and then he would take them off. We gradually built up the time my son wore them. He just wears the hearing aids for school.
My son varies in how much he likes his hearing aids. Sometimes he asks to wear them and sometimes he is very resistant to the idea.
I think you have decide what you want to achieve by your son wearing hearing aids. He might be better off with his school getting a soundfield system. A soundfield system improves the listening condtions for every child in the class. Speakers are placed round the room so it would matter less whether your son's good ear was facing the teacher. Also he would not stick out as much as a child wearing hearing aids.
WRT the volume - the audiologist explained to me that they are at a pre-set volume. You can turn them up a little but not much (IME anyway). When you turn them off and then back on again they automatically revert to the original volume. I don't think your ds2 would be able to do any damage to himself with them tbh.
It took dd3 a while to get used to her aids, but she was 17 months when she got her first aid, once she realised it made a difference to her hearing she was much happier to wear them. We started with her wearing them for about 10 minutes and then tried to build the time up from there that she would wear them. It can still be a little hit and miss but then she is only 2! A little bribery and corruption every now and then helps too!
Spirit 3's beep when the programme is changed so you would be aware if your ds changed it, he won't be able to damage his hearing though. As really tired said, digital aids are the best sort as they can adjust for different volumes at different frequencies. Our unit always has them in stock, mainly because they can go wrong and people need replacements immediately. Ime you don't get a choice of which aids you have, they will decide what is best for your ds's loss and that is what they will offer. Ear moulds usually take a couple of weeks to come through, although if you loose one or the dog eats it (easily done really tired!) they can get them done a bit quicker.
DS1 has spirit 3's. We have been really pleased with spirits (he has a deterioating loss so he has been through a few), we had very bad experiences with danalogics. DS got his first set at 3 and although we were told to introduce them gradually he wanted to wear them all the time once he had them. There is loads of choice of colours for the aids, they may not have what you want in stock but should be able to order other colours for you. For the moulds most places will do colours but not all offer pictures. My sons current set have chelsea fc in them. Another factor in the type of aid you are issued will be if you are getting a radio aid as these are not all compatable with all aids.
For a digital one I think they will probably re-test his hearing first. Basically what happens is that they enter the results of the test into the computer and the computer program adjusts the digital HA. The audiologist then fine-tunes it for the person's individual hearing as much as possible. It would make sense to have the most recent test results that they can get so that the HA will be as accurate as possible.
I don't know the system in Ireland but when I got my digital HAs a few months ago the audiologist also gave me back my analogue ones and said that I might as well keep them as they are now obsolete as far as the NHS is concerned. They don't give them out any more and have no spare parts to fix them with.
she has fitted him for hearing aid but she doesn't anticipate good results as the difference between normal and bad ear is so great. She said there really has to be no more than 40 db difference to hear same in both ears. Starting with moderate ha, retest and then maybe up to a stronger one.
Sorry it didn't go well. Are they going to retest in a couple of weeks, that seems quite a difference from the last test. At least they are prepared to try to make a difference for your ds. I would strongly recomment the NDCS site again, their parent place is pretty good.
I can't remember how she explained the difference (I was quite upset at the time) but she said something about previous tests the right (good) ear was picking up on sounds or something and this time she adjusted so it couldn't? Does that make any sense to anyone?
And then to top it all off I had to take him to gp because he's got sores between his toes and I told him about the test results and he said, Yes, I read the ENT notes about how you had mumps while pregnant with him and he thinks that's what caused it and then he's sitting there all ACCUSATORY asking me WHY DIDN'T YOU HAVE THE MMR??? He must have asked me 5 times.
How the feck do I know why I didn't have MMR. I don't know if I had MMR or not ffs. And then I brought up the outbreak of mumps in Dublin amongst all these teenagers who had been given mmr as kids and he's saying, no most of them hadn't guess the news got it wrong then?
So here he is basically TELLING me that I caused this . But I did a search on internet and came up with NOTHING on maternal mumps causing deafness in utero. ZERO. I did that after ENT appointment. When pregnant I was screened for rubella and I was fine. I assume I either had mmr or rubella. I know I had measles. My feckin birth mother is useless as she can't remember a thing.
Km, goodness dont take this the wrong way, but IIRC you are an 'older' mum, and i really dont think the MMR was introduced till the 80's/90's? i know i had it late and i am an 80's child.
KM sorry you have had such an awful day. It's bad enough finding out about your child's hearing loss with out some insentitive twat blaming you for it!
The problem with aiding a significant difference in hearing losses is that the worse ear's hearing through an aid is likely to be far more distorted. This can actually interfere with the hearing in the better ear. (A little bitlike listening through head phones where one of them is crackly- makes it more difficult to hear.)
However even a little bit of amplification in the profound ear may help with location of sounds (a sort of stero effect) which some children find useful. There is no way of knowing how they will balance out until he tries them. I can't imagine that an aid for a moderate loss (such as the spirit 3)would be much use for a profound loss. They don't really offer enough amplification.
Perhaps they might see how he gets on and then give him a more powerful aid for the bad ear at a later date. But as I said that can interfere with the good ears perception of sound.
The good news is that as he has only a moderate loss in the better ear, he should be able to hear very well especially with a digital aid. I have taught quite a few kids with no hearing in one ear and moderate in the other and they generally do very well-good speech and fairly normal language development.
When there is an asymetric loss the bad ear can false test as the good ear can actually pick up the sounds through the skull bones. The test he had today probably had a masking signal in the good ear when testing the bad ear so the true hearing threshold in that ear became apparent.HTH
The very best of luck. Let us know how he gets on.
Oh misdee I'm made of sterner stuff than that! 46 this month so yes, you're right damnit. Wtf is he ON about? urgh.
smartie - thank you - yes that explains it. His good ear is actually perfect. No loss at all in right ear. She said his hearing will probably get even better than normal in right ear to compensate.
I had whooping cough when I was little and I'd been vaccinated against it so I'm not sure jabs give you total protection against everything. Your doctor maybe right or wrong, but he does sound a bit of an arse! Now come on, when you were 12 months old why didn't you ask to have the mmr??!!!! Don't beat yourself up about it. Hope he managed to sort out your ds toes.
Just saw someone who mentioned radio aids. I would strongly recommend that you look into acquiring one of these for him to use at school as research shows that moderately deaf kids really benefit from them. Most aids have a setting on them for an FM system. Might be worth asking about it when you go back to get the aids.
I have a moderately deaf girl in year 3 in my school. SHe is fully mainstreamed but for some reason her mother was adamant that she didn't want her daughter to have a radio aid as she didn't like the way they looked (thought kids would stare etc.) My pupil nagged her mum so much that she wanted to try one that she relented. I set her up with it last week and the minute I switched it on her face just lit up. Her TA has told me she wears it all the time in class and she is able to hear the teacher so much better. Her TA reports a significant improvement in her work in an amazingly short time.
When your son is used to his aids it might be worth looking into one for him to use at school. The SENCO at his school should know who to ask.
Prehaps a soundfield system would help if a radio aid is not appriopiate.
I'm sorry to hear about the bad results of the hearing test. I believe that unilateral hearing loss is hard to aid. I suggest that you have a look at the ndcs website. They have lots of information for schools on how to teach deaf children effectively.
Bright children are very good at compenstating for hearing loss. Sometimes teachers forget that a child is deaf if they are good at lip reading.
My son got told off by a supply teacher for not listening. Apparently she said to him "Are you deaf?" and my son showed her his hearing aids. My son has bright blue hearing aids and short blond hair. You would have thought that a teacher with a brain would have noticed that he had hearing aids.
Hearing aids are not like glasses in that they do not correct the hearing loss perfectly. There are some situations where my son is better of without his hearing aids. For example in noisy places.
He is CONSTANTLY asking everyone to repeat themselves and talk SLOWLY. 
).
Don't beat yourself up about it. Hope he managed to sort out your ds toes. 
