Ds being investigated for mild hearing loss (nerve based) - questions!

[hazeyjane]

Ds (3.3) is being investigated for sensorineural hearing loss, the audiologist ruled out glue ear, and said that it seemed that ds was not hearing low frequencies. She wants him to see ENT, and mentioned hearing aides.

Ds is completely non verbal, he signs a bit (makaton) and has been issued with a communication device (go talk) which he uses infrequently.

His SALT said that he finds shared attention 'extremely challenging', and he often struggles in busy noisy environments.

I just wondered if there were things that I could be doing which would help, whilst waiting to see the consultant?

Also whether there are questions I should be thinking about asking?

Thankyou

Hazey. What the audiologist give you as a baseline for his hearing loss? The bigger the decibel number the greater the loss. I have a low frequency hearing loss and I don't do well in noisy environments as its difficult to follow what people are saying. So I can completely understand why DS is struggling. As a matter of interest how many kids are in his pre-school? DS4 had 16 in his and that was pretty good. We also got the Teacher of the deaf involved and she assessed the nursery and had sound proofing measures installed to help him.

Hello sallybear

She gave us the level of 35 decibels.

There are 23 in ds's preschool, it is a small room, and I think has quite a muffled sound in there anyway. It is particularly noisy at the moment because they have just had a new intake of 2-3 year olds. I've asked for them to shift his sessions to quieter ones anyway, as he was reacting to the noise, which i thought was a sensory thing, but maybe it's because with the extra noise in an enclosed space, it all sounds that much more confusing.

just to warn you, it is possible to be deaf and have an aversion to loud noise too as part of spd loud noise is only ok if she is the one making it

35db would be classed as a mild hearing loss, the ndcs has loads of fab info about tests/hearing loss/hearing aids so well worth signing up (free) and having a good look round.

you're probably already doing the things you can do to help as they're pretty standard salt stuff. Things like getting his attention before speaking to him, making sure you're close and face to face, keeping sentences short to make sure he's understood, having only one person speaking at a time etc. Ask the consultant to refer you to the teacher of the deaf for your area, ask the preschool to call them in or see if you can self refer, they're usually to be found somewhere within education as the sensory impairment service or similar

and the speech banana is useful for seeing which speech sounds may be harder to hear than others for ds.

What NinjaGoose said. Good SALT practice and deaf awareness tend to dovetail nicely, you're probably already communicating with DS in exactly the right way.

One really important thing that can help is minimising background noise wherever and whenever possible. My DSs can listen and understand very well in environments with decent acoustics, but it can easily go pear-shaped when there's a lot of background noise. This link gives you an idea of what it's like in the classroom (sorry, it's a high-frequency loss here, but you get the idea).

Other things to think about - if DSs gets hearing aids, you could ask the consultant if a radio aid would help. Unless you can purchase yourself, this'll be up to your friendly neighbourhood LA to supply. If your pre-school is friendly, you could ask about other things they might think about doing to lower background noise - rubber feet on chairs, carpeted walls etc.

Best of luck!

Thankyou.

I have emailed SALT and she is doing a home visit in a couple of weeks.

I think the preschool thing is the main difficulty as it has low ceilings and quite a muffled sound in there anyway. the unit in the school he should be going to is much better as there are fewer children and it is a much better space all round.

Did you have trouble with keeping the hearing aides in? Ds was very reluctant to keep ear plugs in during the tests they were doing!

keeping hearing aids in has been . . . interesting I think to start off with it's best to target the times they're worn as aiming for a full day is probably wildly unrealistic, but you never know! We started with short bursts while we were doing therapies as that was always a good time for lots of communication for us, sometimes she'd keep them in longer too. Worst time for wearing hearing aids for dd3 is supermarkets, acoustics seem to be really bad and we often spent time on our hands and knees looking for various bits of hearing aids when she was small, at least now she just hands them over in one piece. She's now a fab hearing aid wearer at school and has the use of a radio aid there but not so much at home, she thinks she manages quite well without

hearing aids and moulds come in various colours so if they don't offer, ask if ds can choose as that might help encourage him to wear them. Sometimes hearing aids come with stickers or you can get your own if that might help too.

Keeping aids in was hard work when they were toddlers, but got a lot easier when they were 3 - by that stage, they'd worked out that they were getting something worthwhile from having them in. When the aids got flung out, it was usually a tantrummy thing that didn't last long. Clips, 'huggies' and toupee tape are your friends here...as is a cream called Otoferm.

Also, if you get the aids, most audiologists these days will have a choice of boy-friendly colours and designs for the hearing aid moulds. It's more of a girl thing than a boy thing, but check this out for things you can do.

Don't be fobbed off when you see the consultant. 35 db is the lowest threshold for hearing aids to be fitted, you may get a wait and see don't accept it. If your ds is non verbal and has other issues it may make a massive difference for him. My ds is very complex and has profound hearing loss so has always been aided, dd has a mild 35 db hearing loss and no other issues she was unaided until 6. Ironically before her hearing aids there were sounds ds heard that she missed.

Thankyou, ninja, ugger and tooloud.

I spoke to the advisory teacher today about ds's hearing test, and she told me about a little boy who she taught when she was a teacher in special schools, who delighted in flushing his aides down the toilet. After seeing ds try to flush one of my bras down the toilet, I fear for the hearing aides in the future!

That is interesting that35 db is the cut off, she seemed to think he would certainly have them, because of his additional problems, but good to be prepared.

We have lost many a hearing aid, and associated moulds and bits, all been found apart from one if that helps. Hearing aids whistle if on and not in the ear which is very helpful to hunting them down!
An fm system is great if you can get it provided, we have a little silver piece that sits on the end of the aid and I or play school teacher or whoever has a microphone on a necklace and this cuts above any background noise. It can also be plugged into TV, music, ipad and gives the sound straight into the hearing aid, very clever and useful.

I would say that an FM system would probably be something to consider for school as most audiologists like to leave a radio aid until the child can pay attention. If they aid mini Hazey then I would take it slowly with wearing aids, start off at home for ten mins at a time.

That's interesting, here they get fm as soon as in educational setting. Severely disabled ds had fm at three when started nursery, we believe it helped reduce some of his anxiety as he calmed when spoke to through the fm.
Wrt starting slowly or not depends on the child and family, we have always with hearing aids, glasses etc gone for the wear as much as possible approach and of the child removes replace straight away. Both the dc with ha and glasses wear full time with no issues.