Can you hear me now?

Recently I took Frog to an early learning assessment to determine if he would benefit from early learning intervention. He passed in all areas except for communication. Even though he is doing much better with speech and language he still has a long way to go to catch up. The office will call at some point to set up further assessments in that area.

While we were there, hearing and vision tests were performed. The vision test was uneventful. The woman gave him a paper with the outline of four shapes on it. Then she held cards out in front of him with tiny versions of the outlines on them. He pointed to the corresponding shape on the paper. It went great, although it did make me realize how badly I need glasses.

The hearing test was an experience in itself. She gave him a paper with different pictures on it and had him identify each one. Then she put the terrible headphones on him. They were metal, heavy, and the ear parts had the ability to turn inside out so they didn't stay put very well. Under regular circumstances he has a three minute attention span. He was in my lap and I could hear the woman on the recording say into his right ear, "Point to the firetruck, point to the sailboat, point to the bathtub." That went on for about six pictures. He got them all correct.

Then the sound started coming from his left side. He got about half of them wrong. "Point to sailboat," the voice said. He pointed to the sandbox. "Point to the blocks," it said. He pointed to the bathtub. "Point to the firetruck..." He pointed to the rainbow. Now at that point he started to get antsy. The headphones were moving all over the place, and he wanted to find something different to do. The woman marked that he failed the hearing test on his left side. She had me call the audiology center and set up an appt for further hearing evaluations.

So we got to the car and I called Jason in full Mama Bear mode. When Frog was born the hospital staff tested his hearing. They said the machine malfunctioned and they could get a proper reading on his left side. They vowed to test him again before we went home. Supposedly they tested him again and his hearing was fine. BUT what if they didn't, and what if it wasn't. In that moment I could have torn those nurses to pieces. I'll spare you guys the language I used, but if my baby had suffered all this time because someone dropped the ball or worse was too lazy to do their job, so help me...

A week or so later we went to our appointment with the audiologist. Right off the bat I was not impressed. The man asked us if there was a history of ear infections before we even got back to the room. When we said no he was very dismissive of us. We had been all down the chronic ear infection path before, just fortunately not with Frog. I was confused by the audiologist's behavior, but I was still hopeful we would leave with some answers. Even as a non-expert I know that ear infections are not the only cause of hearing loss.

Once we were in the booth he ran some preliminary tests to check for physical anomalies. Then he moved on to the subjective parts of the test. The first part consisted of headphones for Frog and the assistant. She pulled out a board with pictures on it. I couldn't hear what they were hearing, but I'm sure it was just like the previous test he had done.

The second part called for Frog to place a ball in bucket every time he heard a beep. I couldn't hear the beeps, but from my end it looked disastrous. I think he was playing with the balls more than caring about beeps. During the third part a light static sound was played through speakers on either the right or left side of the booth. He mostly cooperated, although his responses varied. Sometimes he would point at the sound and other times he would just look at the speaker. Consistently he acknowledged the sounds on the right. On the left he only acknowledged the sounds part of the time. One of the times that he didn't react to the sound I even asked, "Did you hear a sound?" He said, "no."

The audiologist discussed that his results were within the normal range, but because of Frog's cooperation level he wants to retest in a few months. 😐

I just want to know if my child can hear properly. It seems to me like he is mishearing things on his left side. That could be why many of his words sound the same as other words. Maybe he can't hear the distinctions between them. I don't think the problem is major, but I do think there is some hearing issue affecting his speech. I do NOT think it's a coincidence that he has had three hearing tests at different times and had trouble hearing correctly all three times on the left side. So, while we wait to see that audiologist again I'm gonna look and see if we can get some better testing for him.