Issues with Hearing...

[april17th2007]

My son was born 10 months ago. He is a happy healthy little thing. Except for when he was born they noticed he had signs of hearing loss. They tested him and he was born with out hearing in his left year. His right ear was doing good.

Well they decided to keep testing for awhile and have found out through recent testing that the hearing in his right ear is decreasing, and fast. He has no hearing in his left ear and currently has about 30% in his right.

They want to do a surgery to fix up his right ear drum, they said it wont regain any hearing but it will stop it were it is, so he wont lose anymore.

I am having a hard time with this right now, as I am not sure what to do? I am sort of at a loss right now. He is 10 months old... and might lose his hearing... which wouldn't bug me. But then again is the surgery going to work if I put him through that, will it cause more problems in the long run?... I have asked all these questions and got answers back... but not answers that I am happy with.

Right now his surgery is set up for OCT 20th. I am nervous and scared...

We have also enrolled him already in a language class for babies & growing it is called. We are starting young with language and sign language they teach. The doctor said it was a good idea as it will help him in the long run when it is time for him to start school.

I am just kind of at a loss right now, if I am doing the right thing or not.

Also... has anyone else gone through something like this?

 

[lady3]

Hi there,

What is the surgery called? I work with deaf children and haven't heard of this before. Where are you in the states? Do you have a teacher of the deaf working with you to help you with these questions? Is your son babbling still? Is he wearing hearing aids? What is his cause of deafness? I can ask around with some of the other fabulous teachers of the deaf/audiologists I work with to see if they know anything more for you. You can also look on the NDCS (National Deaf Children's Society) website which has a parent forum (it's based in the UK). They may have some more info or advice from you.

Sign language will definitely help him out so it is great that you are being so proactive with this.

 

[Marleysgirl]

We haven't gone through any operations, so can't help with that side of things.

Our son Andrew (14months actual, 11 months corrected) was diagnosed with auditory nerve spectrum disorder last December. We feel he has some hearing on his right side, none on his left; but our Audiology team are unable to measure this yet. Apparently (here) it relies on behavioural testing, i.e. seeing a physical response when noise is played to him; because of developmental delay, he's not yet responding appropriately in the behavioural tests.

In August we started him with hearing aids set at a "conservative" level; however, we discontinued after a month when there was no obvious change in his behaviour, and he was getting increasingly grumpy with the repeated reinsertion - being a baby, he kept pulling the aids out.

We return to the Audiologist in December to see whether he responds any better at behavioural testing. In the meantime we are using some baby signing with him. He doesn't babble at all, he's still just squealing and making vague vowal noises.

We had the Special Needs Teacher (for hearing impaired) around to visit, with suggestions of noisy play, but we weren't impressed with her understanding of how babies play - she introduced far too many toys and he got stressed by it all. She's now "on hold" until after December. We have the Pre-School Special Needs advisor coming this week, more with a view to helping with his developmental delay than his hearing problems.

None of that was probably very helpful to the OP, but I wrote it just to help you by saying "you are not alone".