hearing test

[firstchoice]

Hi. Ds school has suggested a hearing test as he is having trouble differentiating diagraphs in his spelling.
He is 9.6. He had a test pre school. He has had a lot of ear infections though and gp has said his ear is 'scarred'?
School want me to approach GP as they say it is 'quickest'.
GP is rubbish and hates referring and I will have to really push.

Is a standard hearing test what I want?
He also has lots of asd 'traits'.

Asd traits cd be linked to the hearing issues: children with hearing issues can exhibit asd symptoms and when the hearing issue is addressed, the symptoms normally subside, it's documented and we have noticed this with DS. Yes get referral from GP ASAP , he needs an audiology referral rather than a new born hearing screen , or perhaps contact the audiology dept at your local hospital and self refer, esp if you say the school have recommended it, worth a try....waste no time on this one, referral cd take months as it is

thanks, Toni.
anyone else got any suggestions too?
ie what do I ask audiology for etc?

I think there's a couple of options, ENT about the repeated ear infections and possible scarring and audiology for a hearing test, although some ENT depts can do basic hearing tests too, depends on your particular unit. Unfortunately both will probably require a GP referral, could you see a different GP in the practice or get the school to put it in writing and see if that helps? Audiology would do a standard hearing check appropriate for your ds' age which will probably include a speech discrimination test, there's nothing particular you need to ask for at this stage

i phoned the school nurse - she did it with a couple of presses of buttons on her computer - got a letter 2 days later to phone for an appointment - she would have been seen a week later but i couldnt make the appointment so went for one 3 weeks later - we were in and out in 5 mins as her hearing was fine in our case - im sure if they pick anything up they could refer you then onto someone more specialsit - they also check inside the ear as well to check if there is anything there as well

Thanks, all.

I have an email from HT so I'll print that off and take to GP.
Head GP in practice is one who wont refer on and the other gps follow suit. (I have recently had a local Consultant write to my GP asking him to refer me back via nhs and he tried to refuse and then tried to send me elsewhere. Consultant then wrote him a very stern letter, I understand.)

School have asked me to go down this route so I expect I better had.

Hmm your GP sounds difficult, perhaps consider finding a new one if not too impossible...

Hi,
This could be an auditory processing disorder (APD)
APD is not a hearing impairment, which is detectable using a hearing test.
APD is a listening disability, about the brain having problems processing the sounds the ears hear.
Currently you would require a GP referral to Great Ormond Steet Hospital for the battery of APD assessment tests.
You could have a look at the APDUK web site
www.apduk.org.uk/
and the Medical Research Councils APD web pages
www.ihr.mrc.ac.uk/research/apd

Saw GP.
He was resistant, as predicted.
Asked ds why he was there. Ignored me totally.
I stated that school were requesting a hearing test.
He ignored me.
So, I pushed HT's email (which I had copied and taken with me) at his lap. It fell on the floor and he was forced to pick it up. Had to read it, really
He again ignored me and asked ds if he had trouble 'differentiating diagraphs'.

ds was .

I parroted email contents again, and suggested he speak to HT when school resumes, if anything was needing clarifiying.

He looked in ds' ears and said: 'I can see the eardrum. seems fine to me'.

He VERY grudgingly said he would 'refer, but there is really no need'

Knob.

Knob indeed. Cos you can really tell a lot by looking in ear canals for a hearing loss....

I suppose he was looking to see if there was an obvious wax build up or summat but tbh, the look was so cursory I don't think he would even have seen that. He was just not interested at all.

It was the total ignoring of me as a parent holding the instruction from the HT which was so to me.

And the questioning of ds in such a way. He is only 9. How is he supposed to know if he has any subtle hearing issues / affect on diagraph differentiation?

Aargh. I shall say it once more, as it makes me feel (slightly) better.

KNOB.

(thanks, SallyBear, I thought I was maybe being a bit prickly, but it is helpful to get a validation of my 'knob' response!)

yep definitely a knob!

Sorry to hear your GP is such a knob so unhelpful.

Ds got referred to audiology first and then they referred him to ENT - he's now back under audiology.

Both audiology and ENT do hearing tests but certainly our experience is that audiology are much more thorough. Both are really lovely with the children though, ds quite enjoys his trips to hospital!

Your GP was possibly looking to see whether the eardrum was retracted or for scarring. Ime (and also the view of our ENT consultant) most GPs don't really know what they are looking at in ears! Fwiw I also thought ds exhibited traits that could have been described as possibly ASD before we had his hearing issues diagnosed.

There is some good info here on the NDCS website about hearing tests and what the results mean. Might be worth reading up before you go?

Do ask if you've got any questions, happy to help if I can.

hi shoewhore

thanks for the above.

I see that the gp was looking for anything fairly obvious.
other gp in practice has commented before, when looking at ear infection pre offering antibiotics, that ds ear is 'scarred' so there can be things that even a brief look at the easily seen parts of the ear can show.

I think it was the pointedly putting ds 'on the spot' and attempting to ignore HT's request that really got me. (ignoring me so studiously was bad manners but not really relevant to the consultation, I suppose).

I will go look at that website, thanks.