Ds has hearing loss - what should I be doing/saying to school?

[bluebear]

Ds is 4 and started reception in September. He has had hearing problems since he was a baby. He had grommets put in almost 18 months ago, they are still in but his hearing is still poor - he lip-reads well but he has a lot of added problems with social skills and general behaviour (very bad violent tantrums and lashing out). He also has a small language delay - he takes words extremely literally (i.e. he burst into tears and was too scared to eat his lunch for days because a dinner lady said she was going to 'split the reception children in two').
We recently found out (after he had been getting increasing sad because he was getting told off all the time at school) that his teachers had not been told that he has hearing problems. They have asked if there is anything they can do - they have moved him to the front of the class and that has helped.
My questions are...are there any resources available for teachers in mainstream schools to give them guidance for this? I've been googling for some time and not found anything.
And..should I be doing anything else? Should I be trying to contact the SENCO?
I am quite concerned that my frustrated little 4 year old who is finding life so difficult to interpret is going to be labelled a violent and disruptive child
The school have lost even more of my confidence after sending me home a letter on friday saying that the school nurse had tested his hearing and had referred him to audiology - I rang her to tell her he has been seeing a specialist for 2 years and she had no idea.

my dd is patially deaf - she has a HEARING SUPPORT TEACHER who assesses where she is at in her comprehension and understanding of language. this teacher is also the annoying flea which bites the teachers inot actually doing stuff to remember they have a deaf child.

so a teacher will turn round writing on the board whilst speaking.

thats no good if you lip read - but its something which is done automatically.

at the start of term i used to go meet with teacher and remind them that i am interested and remind them that dd needs tobe at the front no matter what she says. remind them that she lip reads and ask if i can do anything to make things easier ( i cant) but the offer is there.

you also have to be the emotional buffer - so if your kid is going to the front og class - chances are he is not with a friend. and he wont like it. so strategies with the teacher have to be worked out.

also low confidence and self esteem - especially if he is considered " different" by other kids - so some special duty like - your ds is the designated gerbil feeder or book collector - a position of special importance the teacher will emphasise. helping to elevate his status and self esteem. perhaps tandeming this high powered job with the twot kid who always has a dig at him so they get to know each other better - am assuming theres a twot kid ?

if i think of owt else, i will let you know.

you should contact the health authority about hearing support teacher - or educacion authority? as my dd was automatically visited after being diagnosed partially deaf. i dont know whether this information and support doesnt filter through if its gromits

Thanks so much custardo!

I 'm guessing that because ds's hearing loss is due to 'glue ear' and glue ear is really really common (something like 80% of children have it at least once before the age of 4) - that it hasn't sunk in that his case is chronic with constant hearing loss.

You're right - he's already been upset by being moved to the front of the class - away from the girls he was making friends with, and next to a little boy who also has behavioural problems ( I think there's a lot of pushing and hitting between them)

I'll re-inforce the message about his self esteem and suggest a duty..great idea. He has, at least, won a few 'good behaviour' stars since I told them about his hearing - before then he was just getting more and more miserable and said that it wasn't worth trying to be good at school.

its so hard to keep them motivated - once they have it in their hed that they arn't clever enough, or the teacher or other kids doesn't like them - once they think am not bothering its really sad especially at 4 years old, really speak to the teacher. there are other things to do with school life that can perk him up too like doing something in the xmas play.

on the confidence side - my daugher has rather too much but we have been through this with my son who saw himself as "stupid" no matter what anyone said or did he thought he was stupid, there was no point in trying and he gave up.

so i went into school with the ideas that i've mentioned and aslo this one.

he did a drawing or a pieve of writing or a poem. we backed it onto nice coloured paper and the teacher put it up in class. which cheered son up no end that his work was on display.

thing is teachers have limited time, and 30 other parents allt hink their litle johnny needs more attention, or more homework or less homework or whatever, so whatever you think of - take the work and time factor out of the equasion for the teacher - putting a piece of already backed nice looking work onto the wall takes no time at all.

also do see about speach therapy now, becuase the list is a gazillion years long so get him on it asap.

Yes you definatly need a Teacher of the deaf (or whatever they are known as in your area).They also have suport assistants in some areas.Does he have a statement? If he gets a TOD this is on his statemnet or he will need one this may also get some classroom support to help with communication.
Get in contact with the National deaf childrens society(NDCS) they run courses for staff and parents in dealing with these sort of probs and may advise you further.

My son is deaf and just started in reception too. He has glue ear but also a permanent hearing loss. He doesn't have a statement or salt but does have teacher of the deaf visits and has just gone onto school action plus and is getting 2x15 mins a week with senco to help him with blending letters. The national deaf children's society are great, they have a website with a parents chat room, loads of documents you can download including one on 'deaf friendly schools' which has loads of strategies for schools. They also have a helpline you can call. There is also an organisation called DELTA which I have found useful although their website is not great.
Position in the class room is important but my TOD has really emphasised that this should not be with 'the naughty child', not just for self esteem reasons but also as any background noise is a nightmare when you are trying hard to distinguish what the teacher is saying.
Let me know if I can be abymore help!

Can't offer any help, bluebear, as I have no experience of this, but this really tugged at my heartstrings :-

" he takes words extremely literally (i.e. he burst into tears and was too scared to eat his lunch for days because a dinner lady said she was going to 'split the reception children in two' "

Your poor DS - bless!!!!!

Hi Bluebear. Your audiology department should be able to sort out a hearing support teacher for you - you should be able to do that over the phone. You could also ask for back copies of reports about his hearing difficulties to be sent to school to increase awareness there. Good luck.

Thanks everyone - can't believe I didn't manage to find the NDCS site when I was googling - it's fab. I have printed off some things to talk about with the teacher and I am looking into what needs to happen next.

Custardo, he was taken off the SALT list after he had his op. since he was able to pronounce the word 'sink' - according to the SALT that's a difficult word to say so he didn't have a problem. He had 2 assessments, one pre-op - which led to his referral to ENT, and one post-op where he said one word - with the SALT hidden behind the door because he refused to talk when she was in the room - that was enough for him to get taken off the list.
TBH his main problem is with not understanding words with more than one meaning (you should have seen his face when the GP asked me to 'pop' onto the bed last week), and with pronouncing a few sounds. Not sure how useful SALT would be..but I think I better try and get him assessed again anyway.
Thanks for everything. BB

Hi bluebear, hope your ds gets the support he deserves, but in the meantime, just a suggestion: can you make sure he understands that if he doesn't hear what the teacher has said, it's the teacher's problem for not speaking clearly enough, not his problem for being deaf.

All too easy for a deaf child to blame themself for not hearing, which feeds into the self esteem thing obviously.

Good point WellieMum - at the moment ds is totally in denial and refuses to accept that his ears don't work properly..

bluebear, I would echo one of custardo's points.

I had hearing loss (60% in one ear) after suffering a particularly bad infection abroad and then flying back (which damaged my ears). I can't exactly remember how old I was - I think around 12 - but it completely destroyed school for me.

I know he is only 4, but I absolutely hated being made to sit at the front of the class and hated it when the teacher turned around (so I couldn't lip read). Also, the ambient noise of the class will no doubt distract him (especially if he's in a state school with 30 in a class) and this will no doubt frustrate him even more.

I would definitely get onto the SENCO and sort out any extra resources he needs. I would also have a word with his teacher and ask whether his whole set of friends could subtely be allocated seats together at the front (I don't know about your school but at ours, they sit at tables with certain sets of children on certain tables so they could easily manufacture someone sitting in a certain place).

Good luck - I really hope they can put some help in place to stop him feeling so frustrated.

Echo the point about engineering groups. I and the other parents of kids in DS1's group have all been made aware that the group is built around him so that other kids have been chosen on the basis that they won't call out and talk at the same time making it difficult for him to follow.
When DS started school the staff had a training day with the TOD and the whole school had assembly to explain deafness and the sorts of problems DS may have, they also demonstrated some of his equipment, the demonstration of his radio aid where they called him to KS2 assembly from his class room was the talk of the playground!

Thanks geogteach - did your ds get 'diagnosed' very young? I have been looking up glue ear but everything I find sort of ends ' and then they have grommets and live happily ever after...' I can't find anything about what happens when grommets don't have much effect...and does this mean that he probably has another type of hearing loss as well as glue ear? All I know is that he has failed every hearing test and had the social/behavioural problems since he was a year old, grommets or no-grommets, to the point of being suspected of being autistic by a few of my friends and relatives.
It's been a big relief to talk to you all about this..thanks.

DS was not diagnosed young. I started having concerns at 2 but he was not refered and tested till 3. They immediately realised there was a prob and refered to ent. Had grommets but improvement was not as good as expected so refered to tertiary audiology dept. Got his first hearing aid about a year ago and 2nd 2 months later, grommets have already been replaced once and one of this set is already out.
Have to say DS is somewhat unusual in that he has good communication skills, vocab is good but pronunciation is odd, this is fine in context but can be difficult to understand if he says single words. He is very positve as long as he has his aids - the only major prob we have is swimming where he obviously can't wear them. His peers are totally accepting of his 'magic ears'! If you watch they do compensate, tugging a sleeve to get his attention or moving into his line of vision.

Thanks - Ds has an audiology check up on the 8th - I have every reason to think that he'll 'fail' the hearing test again, so I am going to ask if he is suitable for a hearing aid of some sort. And for the support at school of course.
I am ashamed to say that I didn't think ds had a hearing problem even though his speech was very poor (6 words at age 2 and 5 of them only family could understand). He was referred due to constant drooling..and then we worked out that he had sleep apnea and problems swallowing because his adenoids were so large they were blocking his throat. He had a urgent adenoids/tonsils/grommets op...which at least cured the sleep apnea and the eating difficulties - still drools a bit though..he's a charmer

i dont know what salt is am afraid - sorry but the mock test you mentioned in an earlier post ( hiding behind the door) is piss piss poor!

my daughter can hear whispers - its about pitch. and tone and surroundings. things that "true" audiologists know things about.

SALT- speech and language therapist. - mentioned it cos you said to get his name on the list asap.

DS1's hearing loss is severe and high frequencies and moderate over all, explaining why he can here some things and not others. Our fridge bleeps if you leave the door open and he definately can't here that but some days can here a train in the garden and the line is half a mile away.

Oh, and I second what custardo says about that "test" - they're having a laugh, surely? - hiding behind a door and listening to 1 word?! wtf?

He needs a proper assessment, as geogteach's ds must have had, so you know exactly what he can and can't hear. That in turn will impact on his ability to hear and imitate different speech sounds which is where the SALT comes in (as opposed to skulking behind the door ).

Deafness is not just like turning down the volume knob on the stereo. It's much more complicated than that, and you (and ds) deserve better answers.

To be fair, the speech therapist was trying to assess speech rather than hearing - and ds would not talk when she was in the room. But I did feel that signing him off her list because he said 'sink' was a bit premature. She said at age 3 they had to be very limited in the sounds they can make to get speech therapy...and at that point he had just had his grommets op and everyone expected that that would cure his hearing and his speech would soon pick up.
It's just that his hearing didn't get better..he has had proper testing by an audiologist but he tends to have a melt down and refuse to co-operative so they can only get the tymphanogram results (flat line) and can't do a proper assessment of his hearing.
Thanks for replying everyone - I'm feeling much more on top of this now.

Have to say we had similar probs with co-operating in audiology which is why we were refered to the bigger centre.
As for SALT DS still has 6 monthly assessments but hasn't received any SALT as is still judged to perform better than many of his non deaf peers, if it gets to a stage where his speech hasn't improved further and his peers has he will qualify.

Interesting Geogteach - I work in a children's hospital and my boss said to me this week - 'It's a shame you can't have ds referred here because I'm sure they will be able to test him without triggering a tantrum' and he's probably right.. if he doesn't co-operate next week maybe I'll see if there's anyway to get referred to a more specialist centre.

sorry haven't had time to read the whole thread.

The RNID produce a number of excellent booklets which are completely free of charge, one copy per parent/professional.

If you phone them, they can send you a list. They are A4 sized, attractively printed and very useful. I'm thinking in particular of one I have at work which is aimed at teachers in mainstream schools (I'm on maternity leave at the moment, so I can't check what it's called).

Try their website?

whoops it's the NDCS that publish them, I think, not the RNID??

sorry to butt in - custy, you said your daughter can hear whispers - would you mind telling me what her hearing levels are like?
I'm asking because my dd who is four is due to have a bone-anchored hearing aid implant done next year. Her latest test was bad again - 45-50 decibels in most frequencies and 60 in the lowest they tested, and we had been so certain that her hearing had got considerably better because she was responding to whispers. Her consultant is really pushing for her to have the implant, and I keep thinking about this 'response to whispers' issue and thinking that maybe her hearing isn't that bad etc etc.
It's interesting to hear that response to whispers isn't a particularly useful indicator of hearing levels.