Conductive hearing loss

[mumrocks2]

Looking for some advice. My DD is 7, had grommets fitted when she was 5 and they are still in and working perfectly. She still isn't hearing properly and had more audiology tests today. Her hearing loss is in the middle ear so is conductive hearing loss. What's good and bad is that we've been left with no real advice. Her hearing loss is not large enough to be told hearing aids (HA), but not small enough to ignore it. So therefore we've been told we have to decide what to do and weigh up the emotional impact of HA against the increase in hearing. I have no idea what to do? Obviously I don't want DD to struggle at school, unable to hear the teacher (currently part of the problem) or her friends. She has great coping strategies and reads lips etc but in a class of 29 across 2 year groups she hasn't got a hope in hell with the youngest child in the class climbing under the table. I don't know what to do, where to go to get advice and feel I'm not being offered any guidance by the experts. Also think my daughter would hate being different and it is going to be an uphill struggle to get her to wear them (a struggle I am more than happy to have to help her). Can anyone help me?????

[mumrocks2]

Bump

[PianoCat]

Look up the NCDS : national childrens deaf society. They support all levels of hearing loss including glue ear. My dd wears hearing aids for conductive loss and has never had any issues with other children other than general curiosity. They are quite dinky now a days and she got to choose the colour of the aids and the moulds - she has light pink aids and glitter filled moulds. It has really helped as without aids it is easy for teachers to forget she can't here so well and get cross with her for missing instructions.

[mumrocks2]

Thank you and good to hear it hasn't been difficult at school. DD already has grommets all working fine but still mild hear ing loss which has little impact at home but add in another 29 children and a teacher who can't concentrate on them all and it's a bit of a nightmare. Did they make a big difference? How old is your DD and how big are they?

[PianoCat]

Apologies for slow reply. My dd has fluctuating hearing loss but was consistently around the 40db mark on the hearing chart for a couple of years. The aids make a difference in a couple of ways - probably the most beneficial for my dd is that it suddenly meant she got termly visits from the teacher for the deaf who checked background noise but also increased the teachers awareness that it was a real issue and not just 'a bit of glue ear'.

In a noisy classroom they're not necessarily that helpful as everything is amplified however I think they are supposed to detect which is the main source of sound and adjust ... but I could be making that up! You can get a radio mike which goes round the teachers neck and feeds direct to the child's hearing aids. However they have never offered one to us as I presume they don't think it necessary. They definitely help when the teacher is giving instructions quietly to the class or turns their back and carries on talking.

The aids themselves tuck behind her ear and are fairly inconspicuous. I am sure your audiology department would be happy to show you some. Her first moulds were clear with a fine glitter running through which were pretty but inconspicuous. She now has a much darker glitter which she loves but are much more obvious.

DD's hearing is currently quite good but she has chosen to wear her aids to school today as she is worried about missing things - I think her current teacher is quite quietly spoken.