Hearing difficulties in a teenager

[TrenItalia123]

DD is noticeably hard of hearing. She's fine on a one-to-one basis, but struggles to hear if there's several people talking and I have to repeat myself a lot. I'd like to have her hearing investigated, but what is the best way of doing this - do I take her for a hearing test at a high street audiologist to get "proof" of her hearing deficit, or just go straight to the GP and ask for a referral? She's 16 so I think she's too old for the health visitor/school nurse.

Sounds like Auditory processing disorder which is how the brain processes sound. DD will need a hearing test first. I was referred from my GP to ENT and then to Audiology.

Thank you. So do you think I should take her to Boots etc for a hearing test first, and then approach our GP? I don't think our GP does hearing tests themselves so I imagine they'd just refer her to audiology...but I thought that if we already have the results of a high street hearing test, it might be a quicker process.

Where we are you can self refer to children's audiology.

Health visitor now goes up to age 18 so would be worth a call.

Hi op- I’m in a similar situation to you and was wondering the same. What did you do please?

There's no way you can tell this from the OP! It could just as easily be hearing loss from the OP!

You can go to GP and they'll refer to ENT. But first they check her ears in case they're blocked.

If you wanted it done quicker you can go to big street one and pay for it mind

My 15 yo dd1 also appears to have APD, as a pp mentioned upthread. Her hearing is fine. Seems impossible to actually get a diagnosis though, as have been trying since last year!

Er, nothing so far I'm afraid. It's on my to-do list! Thanks for the reminder - I'll try to phone the health visitor today.

I've looked into APD, following PP's suggestion (thank you for that) but concluded it's not that.