DC with hearing impairment

[HollyMadison]

Hi. My DS (18 months) has just been diagnosed with mild to moderate hearing loss (although looking at the test results it looks more moderate than mild). Cause unknown. No-one else in our families that we know of has a hearing impairment and it was a bit of a shock. It is permanent nerve damage so he will need hearing aids.

I have many queries and would be so grateful if any parents of DC with hearing impairments (ESP mild to moderate loss) could spare a couple of mins to share their experiences. I know every child is different but I'm wondering...
How did your child take to his/her aids? I hear that sometimes they don't work or children do not take to them well as they make everything much louder than the child is used to.
In terms of speech development, could we expect/hope that by say age 5 he will be speaking like any other 5 year old? Later or earlier than that?
Even with the hearing aids, are lots of adjustments necessary at school and in general life?
My DS is a very active toddler and constantly throwing himself about. Do Hearing aids malfunction much? How many would you expect to need for a pretty crazy boy in say 5 years?

We are not currently in the uk but we are eligible to return for NHS treatment (we will probably have to fund the costs in the country we are currently living in) so I am going to start another thread about NHS timeframes/ range of hearing aids etc.

Thanks in advance for your time x

Thanks for the fantastic responses. Twotears we are in Singapore. We saw a pead yesterday who wants us to put him into an early intervention programme and do some picture exchange training as well as speech and language therapy and the AVT that we will have at the hospital once he had his aids.

My DH is not too sure about the need for the first two. With all this going on I'm not sure when I will have time to sleep and cook food!

Glad you're getting lots of support Holly.

If I were talking to your DH, I would say, take all the early intervention help you are offered. Seeing my own (hearing) toddlers develop, I am aware of how much I missed out on, being a partially deaf toddler - just all that incidental stuff - my toddlers pick up on things that are being said around them (not directly to them), stuff on the radio, sounds around them etc. etc.

Anything that helps enrich your son's experience is worthwhile.

I have recently found out my DD has mild to moderate hearing loss, which is only caused by the 'glue' in her ear. . tbh I have no idea if she needs aids as grommets have come out twice now. I'm only just starting to question all these so-called experts, so have a lot to learn regarding her hearing. She's also on the spectrum (not dx'd yet). It's all very confusing IMO

holly I would definately recommend the early intervention. It will be busy at first but will be well worth it in the long run.

Hi littlelegsmum - your DD hearing problems sound like my DD. once we gave up on hearing aids and swapped to hearing aid we have been putting olive oil in her ears every night & have swapped to goats milk at the suggestion of the audiologist. Not sure if it is this, or pure coincidence, but DD latest hearing test showed she has good hearing (at 25 db) for the first time ever! It probably won't be permanent, but it may be worth giving it a go, in conjunction with whatever your audiologist suggests...

Oh proudmum that definitely sounds very similar. I'll give them a call to see if they think it's worth trying. Thank you. Did you give up on grommets then move to a hearing aid and onto nothing then?

How did you get it into her ears. Did you use a syringe?

Yep, gave up on grommets when the effect only lasted 2 mths & then had to wait 6 months before we could see the ENT consultant (getting hearing aids was much quicker). About a month ago DD started to refuse to wear them, so went to see audiology who confirmed her hearing is now good (although they will keep checking)

Yes, we syringe a small amount into each ear at night & buy goats milk from any supermarket.

HTH

That's great, thank you. I'll start that from tomorrow.

I'm not sure if I'll mention hearing aids or not. I never know the difference tbh and she's learner her own coping strategies as well as lip reading. School never noticed the difference either.

You've been so helpful. Thank you :)

I know your DD is coping at the moment, but it's still worth seeing audiology, as hearing aids are incredibly useful when DD hearing is bad (i was surprised at how much of an instant difference they made to her speech). We've been told to keep hold of them in case DD ears get blocked again and hearing gets worse during the winter.

You're right, I'm definitely going to put that on my to-do list for Monday. She's starting high school in September and she can't afford to miss time off or miss important info. It's not going to be as easy to keep up as junior school.

Ps I've changed nickname! :)

Holly, do go for the early intervention, in fact get all the help you can. The earlier the better as the theory is you DC won't need so much help in the long run.
We go to an early intervention centre: one preschool session a week and a one to one with a teacher of the deaf a week. Its about learning to listen amongst other things. It has been a godsend for my DS. We aren't in the UK either, but will be moving back soon. Eek.

Thanks twotears. Yes I am definitely going to do an early intervention program along with AVT (and also our hospital has booked us into PECS and SLT sessions). My challenge at the moment is to find the right provider of the early intervention program as most providers offer their program for 2.6 years and older and he is 18 months. Also I really want to find a provider where the SLT staff speak English as a first language or at least very clear English.

Another vote here for AVT (5 year old profoundly deaf daughter with speech and language now almost 2 years ahead of hearing peer level) Its not just speech and language therapy as they have to be experienced in audiology and educational issues too. The key points to success are get good input ( ie hearing aids working well), do the intensive work early (all the research says this) and parental input is key. My dd is in a mainstream school and one of the highest achieving kids in her class. You'll be fine but you need to focus.

Ornellaia we must have crossed paths (us AVT-ers are a small group in the uk !

Thanks Hatchy. Yes I do need to focus. I haven't been disciplined enough on doing the SLT exercises we'd started before we found out about the hearing loss. Thanks for reminding me to focus. Your DC sounds inspirational by the way. When the going gets tough the tough get going. I'm going to keep looking back at this thread to keep me gee'd up. :)

I'm with you all the way my ds2 was diagnosed at 24 hours old so I'm back at the start again. School needs to think about making the hearing environment as good as possible including using microphones and direct input to the child ( an fm system) and focusing on sitting at the front. If they are a lip reader a clear view of the speakers face is useful as well. We have a blog called alicesears dot com

I made a few local friends with deaf children, who also all did AVT with their DC - it's very funny when you notice we all talk to our kids in a similar way, thanks to our training!

Have just had a look at your blog too and recognise your DD from the AVT website, I was asked to do a writeup for DD but never got around to it

hollymadison it sounds like you have a lot of help available where you are already (certainly more than we offered in the UK). We went for as much early intervention as we could, finding things like AVT that weren't offered locally, and dropped things as and when it became clear they weren't adding anything any more.

Laughs at dropping things along the way - we did that you find your own path through google and talking to everyone .