Starting School with Hearing Loss

[plzp]

Hi. My DD has perforated ear drums in both ears. In her right ear there is virtually no drum left at all. As a result she has some hearing loss. I am wondering how this will affect her when she starts school in September.

We did have a hearing test done about 4months ago, and the results were mild hearing loss, but my concern is that the test was done in a totally silent room, yet at school she will be in a totally different environment - 30x kids in a confined space !

So, has anyone, who has been in the same situation, have any advice on what I can do now to ensure she gets all the help possible before she starts school, and also when she is there ? eg should she be statemented as SEN ?

Very grateful for any help.

Thanks

DD1 had temporary hearing loss (lasted about 18 months in total) when she started school - it was about 30% in one ear. Her teacher made sure she was sat right at the front of the class, and that seemed to work, because the rest of class was making noise behind her, but not between her and the teacher IYKWIM.

Your DD could well need some speech therapy to teach her to produce the sounds she can't hear - mine had trouble especially with ch, sh and th, in other words, the unvoiced sounds at the top end of the spectrum. The speech therapist sorted that out perfectly, but DD still confuses l and n sounds at the age of 11 although her hearing is fine now.

We didn't get her statemented because it was temporary, but if it had been permanent we would have considered it. Best of luck!