How do they test the hearing of a 3 yo?

[duchesse]

DD3 has been referred for a hearing test by our GP. She's been pretty deaf for some months now (can't hear normal speech from a couple of metres away, nor a loud whisper/gentle talking from a few inches), after possibly perforating both ear drums (very very quietly- no apparent pain, no rubbing ears or complaining) in December. She's been speaking less clearly for a couple of months.

The other complication is that she was on Gentomycin for a week at birth. The GP was more than willing to refer her on that basis.

Does anyone have any notion of how long we can expect to wait? Also how do they test the hearing of a 3 year old?

No idea about the waiting time - we are abroad and can self refer to specialists and I could make an apt for the following week.

However my son had his hearing tested at 3 because his Kindergarten thought he had a hearing problem. The test involved him wearing headphones through which various tones were played, and pressing a button whenever her heard a sound. That was it for him, and the doctor also asked me background questions and assessed his language by trying to have a conversation/ question and answer session with him (which was complicated by his German being behind his English at that point, and by him being very shy at that point). The tones played over the headphones were the main thing though I think and were no problem for a 3 year old (he was under 3 and a couple of months at the time).

Hope your daughter is OK!

• he was 3 and a couple of months. I was going to write under 3 and a half...

Yes, my experience is of headphones, tones being played, and pressing a button whenever you heard one. Another test was moving a painted building block from one side of a tray to another whenever a tone was heard through the phones. The tones were of different pitches and volumes. It was all very straightforward.

I think the amount of time you will wait will be depend on the area you are in. We waited 3 or 4 weeks for a referral through the GP but that was some time ago.

Can I point you in the direction of the ndcs.org.uk website? They have a lot of information about the types of hearing tests that are done.

DS is 3 and has his hearing tested every few weeks due to medication.

For him, they start off without headphones, just playing sounds that are louder or softer, higher or lower and when he heard one he has to put a man in a boat, or build a tower or something. He is allowed to sit on my knee as he is quite shy, as long as its obvious I'm not nudging him every time there's a noise!

After that they put funny headphones on him - they don't go over his ears but on the skin in front of one and behind the other and play the noises again and he does the same thing. From that, somehow they can tell whether any hearing loss is down to something like glue ear or damage to the auditory nerve.

At the end they usually put a little probe slightly in to his ear - a bit like the newborn hearing test. It's not painful but he isn't a fan!

Am afraid I don't know about referral times either. I hope everything is ok but the test itself is nothing to worry about.

Dd had two types of test, one where she had to indicate that she had heard the sound by dropping a toy into the basket and the second one where an instrument was placed in her ear and it measured how her ear responded so nothing for her to do.

Thank all! I asked (12 year old) GP how they did and he said "pass" . As long as he got the referral out I don't care that he doesn't know.