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Here you'll find advice from parents and teachers on special needs education.

Original poster

glue ear and difficulties at school/nursery

26 replies

incywincyspideragain · 06/04/2012 21:32

all 3 of my ds's had grommets last year (ages 2,3 and 4 at the time)

ds2 is going to have grommets again (now aged 4) in 2 weeks time less than a year after his first set, he has become withdrawn and clingy again at nursery and home Sad The consultant said he had 'significant' hearing loss in one ear and not enough in other ear to compensate, he often lip reads and misses most of what is said. Today he has been flopping around saying how tired he is and watching TV is 'too much'

ds3 is only 3 months after op so is doing ok, he has speech and lang delay and we're about to see SALT, he winges and tantrums, mostly out of frustration - I still don't understand most of what he says Sad

ds1 is struggling at School - terrible first yr, had grommets towards end and really improved this year (can now read), then out of blue since Feb has been having problems (not listening, refusing to do set work... we haven't worked out if its all hearing related or if there is other stuff going on, School have called in Ed Psyc again). He describes his hearing as 'flat' although appears to hear us ok (we have a hearing test booked for a weeks time) He also says the reason he can't do his work at School is it is 'too noisy and makes him grumpy'

Tonight I'm totally fed up with it, I have no idea how to spot if they can't hear very well (I already feel guilty that it took us until pretty much the end of reception to get ds1's grommets and how he understood phonics pretty much instantly after that) or how much it is affecting their behaviour or even if I'm placing too much weight on it and actually its not that bigger a deal (although I understand that ds2's audiogram showed it wasn't great - left ear under 20db for low Hz falling to 40db, right hear 40db)

I know lots of children have glue ear (I think about 4 children in ds1's class have had grommets), presumably it doesn't affect their behaviour so much that the Ed Psyc comes in? so there must be something else going on?? or that nursery suggest ds2 might need 'additional support'? (I have no idea what they mean by additional support at moment)

By looking into it I know their hearing fluctuates with glue so how do I flag up that it might be a problem if somedays they are fine... or am I trying to pin their difficulties on hearing when actually there is another dx/additional need that I haven't considered?

Has anyone had any experience of reoccuring glue ear?? How did if affect your dc? I need to work out what I'm doing with this as I have a few years ahead before they 'grow out of it' but I have no idea what

OP posts:
margoandjerry · 06/04/2012 21:48

hi incywincy

I'm sorry you are having such a nightmare with this. My DS (now 2.5) had intermittent glue ear which caused hearing loss obviously but the real problem for us with absolutely endemic ear infections (like 15 in one year - he was on antibiotics literally every day for 12 months).

It did delay his speech but the hospital were reluctant to do grommets becauses this all happened when he was only 6mo - 18mo so below their standard 2yo lower limit for grommets. Cue massive row and he finally got grommets at about 22 mo since when his speech has picked up hugely and he hasn't had an ear infection since.

But that's just background. To answer your question, when I was battling the hospital to prove there was a problem, I bought a gadget from amazon which sends some sort of soundwave into the ear and tells you whether there is glue there or not. It's this one
www.earcheck.com/

I had to import it but it wasn't hugely expensive. It's not foolproof by any means - but it did help me quite a bit when my son was too young to tell me that he was in pain. It gives you a red, amber, green reading. Red is definitely fluid present, amber is monitor and green is fine. I quite often got amber when he actually had a raging infection and a head full of fluid but it was helpful in giving me a clue that there was some fluid there and helping me anticipate an infection on the way (like if it ever said amber, even if he wasn't in pain at the time, he would be two days later, without fail).