Hearing loss in preschooler

[Anonymous]

If your preschooler was diagnosed with hearing loss, how did this work? I have a 4 year old (actually I wrote the “what do you wish you’d known” post recently). My DH and I think many of her challenges stem from not being able to hear well and the anger / fear this causes. (Angry when we don’t understand her, afraid of things that rumble like vacuum, trucks, trains etc)

She failed her newborn screen at birth in one ear. The next day she was a low pass in both ears. She’s had audiology appointments that she passed at certain frequencies or in one ear and they’ve said “it’s wax” or “it’s her cold” etc. At 10 months she had a perforated ear drum. At 13 months she got ear tubes and the tube is still in the right ear. (I don’t know why the ent hasn’t removed it). At her 4 year appointment they did the ear phone test and she didn’t raise her hand unless prompted. She just went to the audiologist for the first time in a few years. They did the ear phone test - after raising her hand once or twice, she just sat there. The person doing the test said “remember, raise your hand if you hear a birdy chirp” and then she’d raise her hand. At home we asked if she could hear it or if she was just pretending. She said “sometimes it was too quiet and it was hard to hear but mostly I was just pretending.” So who knows... then they did the newborn screen and it failed in her right ear. They said “that’s probably because she still has a tube in and the screen doesn’t work well with tubes”. The take-away was she didn’t pass anything but “she’s probably hearing just fine and wasn’t focused on the test”.

I wrote the pediatrician to ask what the next steps should be if, unlike the audiologist, we do not think “she’s probably hearing just fine”. Did anyone have clearer / more conclusive results at this age? Or a diagnosis? If so I’d welcome advice!!! Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

How’s her language? That’s a good clue as to whether she hears.

[Anonymous]

Have you seen a good ENT? At Children’s? Make a follow up appointment (post tubes etc). Did this improve with the tubes? Maybe she needs new ones.

[Anonymous]

Go to a different audiologist. At 4, she is old enough for a real hearing test. If she needs to sit on your lap for the test, or needs a better rapport with the audiologist, try to make it happen.

[Anonymous]

Her speech is a big problem (and why we suspect poor hearing). Multiple times a day she is screaming at me or throwing things or lying on the floor crying yelling, “you don’t understand me!” She’s also very loud and often asks me “what did you say?”

She sees the ENT every few months (we used to live in DC but aren’t in the area anymore so not Children’s). She’s very creative and imaginative and has a really extensive vocabulary, so she can clearly hear enough to pick up words / speech, she’s just very, very hard to understand. (We recently also started speech therapy).

[Anonymous]

Op here. Update...saw the ENT today. The right tube has come out now. There was a fair bit of wax that she removed. Then we used the machine that tests frequencies in ears (not hearing test with beeps, but the one that I think makes sure sound waves are traveling). It didn’t work / wasn’t getting a response in her right ear (tried 7 times). The ENT thought she wasn’t getting a good seal, but this was the same problem at the audiologist. The ENT thinks repeating the audiology exam with a different audiologist makes sense as a next step.

[Anonymous]

We found out at 4- had passed the infant screening with no issues and there was no history of ear infections or anything.

She failed the pediatrician test and they were like “don’t worry the equipment is bad,” but I followed up with the ENT.

It is more about the structure of the war- the nerve is fine but the sound is not getting through the ear.

[Anonymous]

Is she staring at your lips when you talk? Ignoring you unless you are right in front of her? Start learning some basic sign language words (hungry, thirsty, more, bathroom, etc.), and use them. Keep learning more words.

People, especially children, need to communicate. Do so however she is able.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Update...saw the ENT today. The right tube has come out now. There was a fair bit of wax that she removed. Then we used the machine that tests frequencies in ears (not hearing test with beeps, but the one that I think makes sure sound waves are traveling). It didn’t work / wasn’t getting a response in her right ear (tried 7 times). The ENT thought she wasn’t getting a good seal, but this was the same problem at the audiologist. The ENT thinks repeating the audiology exam with a different audiologist makes sense as a next step.

Op, my child is deaf so I have lots of experience with audiologists.

You need to find a pediatric audiologist and have the full hearing exam - it measures hearing across all the frequencies to understand if/where there are gaps. DO NOT go to a regular audiologist who doesn’t work with kids all the time - they may not have the right equipment, as kids ears are smaller and they need smaller parts. Also, they need to have experience about when it’s time to call it quits for the day, as the readings are not reliable once your kid is tired and starts fidgeting.

We have been to three different pediatric audiologists and really trust one of them. We drive to CNMC to see her, but if you aren’t in the area, find a close by hospital that has ENTs that do cochlear implant surgeries - not that your child will need one, but it means that the hospital has the expertise to diagnose your child’s hearing properly, as well as help your find a solution which could include a hearing aid or cochlear implant as well as speech therapy (which is not normal speech therapy, it’s actually therapy to help kids learn how to properly use their hearing aids or cochlear implants).

I’m sorry your are having a hard time finding the right folks to help you. In the DC area I could share names. Really wishing you the best - it can be a bit challenging at first, but we have been able to find great help and resources to help our child.

[Anonymous]

Previous PP here - just want to reinforce that you need to find an audiologist that works with young kids. It’s an art as much as a skill, and you will continue to need regular audiology support throughout your child’s life. My child had their first tests as an infant, and we go back every 3-6 months.

The first time I went to ours (which was the second “full” testing session) I was a little irritated that they wanted to repeat the same testing that had been done at the other hospital. I went along with it, but was immediately impressed with how they knew how to make it comfortable for my 3 months old child. They results were slightly different than the previous testing but I trusted the results more because I could see their experience.

We tried to switch another time to a pediatric audiologist more conveniently located but went back to CNMC because of the clear difference in expertise.

[Anonymous]

Op here. She definitely can hear and speak - it’s just clear to us (volume, what she tells us) that she doesn’t hear well. The audiologists and ENT are pediatric. We’d gone to an audiologist in our doctor’s medical group this time, but we’ll go back to Stanford at ENT’s suggestion. We’re in Bay Area. The Stanford pediatric audiology does do implants but I don’t see going that route. Her speech tested at bottom 1% for articulation which the speech therapist said translates to a non family member understanding her about 60% of the time. Out of context I understand her maybe 70% of the time - much more with context. Meanwhile we’ve started down the path of getting her assessed through the school district. She’ll meet with a speech therapist and some other experts, but they only bring in an audiologist if there’s documented history of hearing loss. And since she’s had many inconclusive audiology appointments (“it’s wax”; “it’s fluid”; “the machine isn’t working”...) I don’t think we have that.

[Anonymous]

we had conductive hearing loss diagnoses in Kindergarten. It is mild in one ear and moderate in the other. Speech is fine (which is slightly odd) but behavior was confusing- missing directions, mispronouncing common words, thinking words were the same (there/where),etc... We saw a pediatric ENT and audiologist and he was perplexed because the nerve is fine. We did tubes to see if that would help and it did not. We tried allergy meds. We thought it would improve as she got older but she is in older and it is consistent. We never got firm answers beyond ear structure and air flow to through the ear.