Should I get ds's hearing tested?

[headfairy]

DS is always getting me to repeat things... I sometimes wonder if he's just not paying attention (he's 5 next week) and it was just an age thing and probably a boy thing too He hears some things perfectly well - like the bin men on a Friday morning. Don't ask me why, but he loves watching them. His bedroom is right at the back of a long skinny house and every morning before they've barely turned in to the road he's leapt out of bed and come running down the hall to my bedroom to have a look out the window.

Other times when I'm talking to him I have to repeat myself several times. Often it's in response to a question he's asked me so he should be listening (ie what's for breakfast mum? type questions)

Does this just sound like the distracted butterfly mind of a normal 5 year old boy or is it worth getting someone to check him over?

if you are thinking that it may be a problem get it checked, there will probably be a wait to get an appointment - at 4 we had a referal from the HV, he had glue ear, some sounds he couldn't hear at all, others were fine, it was worse when there was lots of back ground noise ie he was a diaster at school.

best out come is he's fine and no need to worry... or there is something and you are in best position to support him at School... win/win imo

Is it better to go through the HV then incywincy? Were there other symptoms of glue ear - somehow in my head I'm seeing oozy gooey stuff pouring out of their ears, but I'm not sure it's like that :o

His speech is amazing, very strong clear diction, good volcabulary. Doesn't make many of the mistakes his friends make, saying things like "my got one of those at home" for example like one of his friends. All he does speech wise is the standard conjugating irregular verbs regularly iyswim (ie saying buyded instead of bought) I would have thought if he had hearing issues his speech wouldn't be good. It is noticeably worse when there's background noise though.

YES! I had just the same problem. Turns out DS (4) has a 40% loss and within 3months has been fitted with hearing aids which are great!
He has very common glue ear (8/30 in every reception class will have glue at some point). Will very likely go within a year.

HV refered us and we were seen quickly.

oh lovely, I will speak to HVs... I haven't contacted them since dd was born 2.8 years ago, so lordy knows where their numbers are. Are they in the back of the red book still (I'm not at home right now)

I felt the same about my ds. Had him at the docs a few times and was told he was just a child with wax in his ears and selectibe hearing. Then we moved out of the area so he changed school and new teacher said he had the worat hearing on a child she had ever taught and had the school nurse test his hearing which he failed miserably! So back to the docs and we are now waiting to have a minor op to remove ear wax and then retest to see if it was the wax causing the problem!
I would take him to the docs if i were you and also have a word with teacher a few weeks into school starting. Cant hurt to have him checked. Test is simple beep machine

We were referred by our GP for DD when she was three. She had a few speech problems and was mainly very hard to contact if she couldn't see your face.

I don't know where you are but in local schools the nhs perform a basic sight and hearing test on all reception age children. Any problems are forwarded for further investigations.

Yes, there's no harm in testing him. The tests are quite fun really; my DS is profoundly hearing impaired and looks forward to them as it's someone paying him absolute attention for about half an hour and playing a game with him! He gets lunch at his favourite caf afterwards.

Your GP should refer you if the HV is hard to contact.

sadly we didn't have any concerns with ds before he started preschool, talking fine and only a couple of ear infections, first indication was that preschool said he was autistic becuase he couldn't cope in school setting, my mum suggested hearing and eye sight check, also turned out he was hypermobile (hence 'immature running gait') almost 18 months after grommets (he's now 6yrs) he's rapidly catching up socially and academically - the most amazing thing for us was 2 months after grommets he sat on the beach with his hands over his ears complaining that the sea was too noisy, the first autumn he looked at me with his eyes wide and said 'I get it, leaves rustle' he used the word, had great language but never understood it in context

Since then my 2 other ds's have had glue ear and grommets, only ds3 has had unclear speech but his language has always been good. Hearing is on a scale, compromised is not the same as deaf also glue ear can flutuate and be progressive rather than not ever being able to hear the sounds to develop good speech.

Oh and don't trust the School tests, do your own - plus it could take ages for them to do them, ds had grommets in March and his hearing test the week later so if we'd waited for that it would have been an even longer date to be referred to ENT.

sorry that was a very me post glue ear plays a bit part in our life! good luck with getting hearing test x

You could do a simple test yourself in the meantime. Stand behind your child and at normal speech level say ooo, aah, eee, ssssh, sssss, mmmmm these are ling sounds and cover the frequencies of speech try the same sounds across the room with no lip reading at normal speech level one by one. Your child should repeat each sound back to you in turn. A smartie should act as an incentive.

Gp will refer for preliminary tests to check for glue ear - my son has it, although not severely at present, going back in October for another check. It'll put your mind at rest - then you'll know if he's just not paying attention!

The consultant we saw explained that he could hear, but sound would be muffled, rather like being under water. He struggles with differentiating speech in loud environments, so the teacher now keeps him close to her if she's doing group work with the class.

Having no speech or language problems is not a good indicator of hearing loss. My DS was found to have 50% hearing loss in both ears when he was 6 yrs old and we had no idea that he had any problems ! It was detected by a routine check with a school nurse. Sadly it was not glue ear ,which is treatable , but actual partial deafness. He had very discreet hearing aids which he wore very rarely until he was 11 when he stopped using them . He doesn't think he has a problem ,has always excelled academically and is just about to start his second year at uni.

I had DD's, almost 5, ears tested a few months ago - like your DS her speech is quite advanced but she seemed to be constantly saying "what did you say mama?". I suspected selective hearing, but wanted to rule any problems out.

The GP referred us without any problems - he gave us some eardrops so we could make sure she didn't have a wax build up before the test. It took about 3 weeks for the appointment to come through.

The test was very much based around game playing and she really enjoyed it. Luckily, her hearing was fine, but I am glad I got it checked.

Having the confirmation meant I could start being more firm with her about not listening, whereas I was a bit reticent to get cross before the test just in case I was telling her off for something she couldn't help.