Who else has children with hearing aids?

[geogteach]

Noticed a couple of threads on hearing loss recently. DS is recently diagnosed with moderate loss at 31/2 and has just got aids. Interested so I know who to ask when I have my next mold doesn't fit / battery is flat / need to cut tubing crisis!

Hi can anyone answer my question? geekgirl you say about high frequencies - harvey is definitely oblivious to whistling - we keep testing him and he has no idea there is a sound going on! Also today I knocked on the window with him on the other side and he didnt respond to that either.

However, I can say to him "Say bye bye" and he will say bye bye!

It is all so confusing isn't it pecka, how they seem to hear some sounds and not others.

Hope you get some answers at your appointment

Just a normal voice. I mean dd didn't answer to her name at about 18months - 2 but then there were other things going on!

Peckalover: "However, I can say to him "Say bye bye" and he will say bye bye!" Is he lipreading you when you say it? Or is this one of the expressions you always use and he knows it's expected of him. I'm asking because I can talk to my son in the mornings and he pays no attention at all (he's 5, so he's at the deliberately ignoring stage). If I ask him "What did I just say?" he'll make an educated guess "Put on your shoes" or "tidy up" or whatever, he goes through a list of possible things I might have asked him to do. I'm predictable, I know. He rarely admits he hasn't paid attention - which is so annoying because you don't know if he didn't hear because he wasn't listening or didn't hear because he's deaf.

www.listen-up.org is one of the best websites around about hearing loss (including what sounds are heard at what levels)

members.tripod.com/Caroline_Bowen/home.html is an excellent resource for speech-related matters, including charts of where children "should" be at at every age

Geogteach - the radio aid is provided by the LEA. Make sure you include it in his Statement. You can also buy a radio aid, if you want one for home use, for example, from www.conevans.com Or you could arrange with his school and TOD that the radio aid goes between home and school every weekend or at least during holidays. They aren't so keen on this to-ing and fro-ing, but could be worth asking. Or maybe they even have a spare one to lend you just for home use, in addition to school use. You could start using a radio aid now to get used to it and because it's useful (e.g. when out shopping). I'm sorry, i still have to learn what levels of hearing loss each child has on here, so ignore some of this advice if it's going over the top for the kind of level of HL your child has.

Good to have the advice, as a teacher i'm fairly sure he won't get (or really need) a statement, however i'm not sure where that leaves us with stuff like funding for equipment he will need. Need to talk to our teacher. She seemed to think that a radio aid would be important as he learns to read but may not be necessary later on. At the moment i'd settle for 2 aids that fit! Had to let him go to nursery without one of them today because the whistling is so bad, we've had a new impression done for this one and are waiting for the mold but the other one is not perfect either and he only got that last week. had a look at the websites you recomended cristina they would suggest that the molds should be lasting longer at his age and level of deafness, ho hum!

is everyones kids going to a deaf/hearing or hearing school with hearing dept for the deaf?

Biglips - mine is going to a mainstream school without a hearing impaired unit. He has a radio aid, 1h a week speech therapy, 1h a week teacher of the deaf, 20h a week learning support assistant. We are pleased with this Statement provision so far as he's doing very well (i.e. not just coping).

Geogteach - that's exactly what Statements are for: to provide the help needed for the child to access the curriculum. If they need a radio aid, then that can go in the Statement. Yes, you can be fooled by "you don't need a Statement to get a radio aid/speech therapy/TOD" but, having been in touch with lots of other parents who've gone this way before, I'd say it's worth getting a Statement for this as the promise may never come to anything otherwise. Or any provision can change when there's a change of staff (notoriously, speech therapists) and if you've only had the help as a "kindness" there's not a lot you can do about it. The classroom is noisy at all times, not just when reading, so the radio aid can be helpful at all times. Then the teacher can move about, there can be some distance between her and the child and the child doesn't miss anything. We struggled to get a Statement for Dominic because his first teacher of the deaf was very reluctant, so we referred him ourselves in the end. He's had two other excellent TODs since then. The TOD goes in weekly to sit and watch Dominic during classes and to discuss with the teacher what's planned for the week and if anything needs changing as a presentation for the whole class which would also make it easier for Dominic (e.g. using more visual aids). It's working very well. The speech therapist does a lot of language building work, rather than speech, as Dominic's speech is pretty good.

Alex will also go to mainstream, he has been in nursery and pre-school since he was 4 months without anyone even realising there was a problem, we know now he lip reads. Teacher of deaf is already involved and he will have another slat review in spring. Think I need to be a bit more pro active as because of the recent diagnosis the school he is going to does not even know about the problem yet.

i went to a mainstream school with a hearing impaired unit and i had a phonic ear box from school as everything was provided. Cristina - sounds like you've got everything sorted.. gud luck!

geekgrrl - do you get the DSA magazine - there is an article in there about a new type of hearing aid..

this is the website here

there is a none anchored one for children.

Well now have appointments with TOD, audiology technician and SALT all next week, they always seem to come together. There is also another mold in the post so maybe by the end of next week we might actually be in a position to use both aids. Has anyone ever been on the DELTA summer schools or thinking of going this year?

The DELTA summer schools are brilliant. We went when Dominic was 1.5 and are going again this summer for the primary school age children. They went on a bit about the oral/aural method and not using any signing at all but, that aside (which you can ignore), everything else was great about it. I don't know if I learned a lot from it, as I'd already read up so much on deafness and had had 1 year experience of it by then, but it was very reassuring to know that I'm doing the best I can. It was great meeting other parents too and we have kept in touch over the years. Together with another mum I met there we set up an email discussion list (it's called Reverb-UK on yahoogroups, everyone is welcome to join). We are going to the Lancaster one (i think the dates are 24-28 July), which one were you thinking of? Probably Winchester as yours is much younger and you'd be going to the pre-school one.

it is confusing when your child can hear some soundsnot others. its to do with frequencies and what background noise is going on at the time. with no ther noise in the room i can stand behindmy daughter and whisper and depending on the sounds in the words i use she can hear it. but other times like last night - i was helping her with her homework on data modelling and she was concentrating ont he computer and i was talking to her in a normal voice and she didnt hear half of what i said - got the wrong end of the stick and we had a big "thing" becuase she didn't have her aids in!

aids are still important with a borderline loss, my dughter wasn't diagnosed until she was 9 and at nearly 12 she cannot pronounce some words properly. but 9 years with a 40% loss has taught her to lipread so excellently that the teachers at school have to ask her if she has her aids in ( at my request) as she will do anything not to wear them!

The plan is to go to Winchester (its also closer) but thinking about it DS starts primary in September but won't be 5 till following April. Need to think about this one!