Special Needs
Hearing Loss
hi girls! My little sweet pea is 11 weeks old and we just found out that she has a sensorineural hearing loss. I was just wondering if anyone else was also dealing with this. Thanks!!
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Re: Hearing Loss
We think our DS has an issue with his cochlear. Sorry for the funky text, I c&p'ed from another post....
DS has mild hearing loss on one side and mild/moderate on the other. If he hadn't been screened, I am not sure we would have picked up on it because he was responding to our voices. He wasn't startling a lot though, so I may have eventually done something only because I know hearing is an issue with other babies that have the same brain condition as Nate. He has been wearing hearing aids since he turned three months old and I have noticed a difference in his waking hours and he is much more interactive and "talking" up a storm.
Since he needs to hear every "t" and "d" in order to learn to speak it is important that he wears the hearing aids during his waking hours. The audiologist told us that by the time he goes to school he will probably refuse to wear them and we should be prepared for that. By that time he may have other coping strategies such as sitting in front or lip reading.
Since Nate's hearing loss is not conductive (structural) and his auditory nerve is functioning, our guess is that his cochlear is underdeveloped and he just doesn't have enough surface area to pick up and transmit everything he hears.
It is scary contemplating hearing aids because they are a visible sign that your child is different, but people have been kind in their comments. We have heard "wow! I didn't know they made hearing aids that small" or "how can they test someone so young? they cannot raise their arms!". The main thing is that it is "fixable" to some extent. There is technology available to help your baby be all that he can be. Good Luck!
Hi,
My 2 1/2 year old was diagnosed with mild/moderate hearing loss when he was just 6 weeks old. We got hearing aids when he was three months old. I know its hard, but it is really good you caught it early! The struggle will be to keep the hearing aids on once she gets more mobile, but if you are consistent with her wearing them then for her and you it will just be a part of who she is.
I don't think there are any other options besides hearing aids. Its kind of like glasses where you just kind of have to have them.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
It depends on the frequency:
Right has a 40dbl at 500 & 2000Hz and 30dbl at 400Hz (Mild hearing loss)
Left is 60dbl at 500, 40 dbl at 2000 and 50 dbl at 4000 (Mild/Moderate loss)
No other options were given. Maybe in the future there might be something, but since his loss is mild/moderate we probably won't do anything surgical unless he really wants/needs it.
Hi, My 16 month DD was diagnosed with severe to profound hearing loss at birth. It was quite a shock to us as no one in our families has any type of hearing loss. She was fitted for hearing aids when she was 2 months old and we began the process to get her a cochlear implant. She did not have much response or access to sound with her hearing aids. She had her cochlear implant surgery in April and it was activated in May. She is now responding to sounds at 21 decibels...the sound of a whisper.
It's been a long road and we still have a lot of work ahead of us but she should hopefully be caught up to "hearing" peers by the time she is two.
I know it's not the worse thing that can happen to our children but there are times it does feel horrible. I still have my moments but she is incredibly happy and healthy in every other way. We did genetic testing to find the cause of her hearing loss. The hearing loss is genetic (connexion 26) but is not part of any other syndrome.
Please feel free to PM if you have any other questions. I'm more of a lurker here but am here if you need to talk.
Shanna
It's nice to hear stories from other people. My son was found at 2 weeks to have hearing loss. He is now 5 weeks old and we have started the Pure Tone ABR testing in order to get him hearing aides and get them set appropriately. They say he has bilateral moderate sensironeural hearing loss. We have had him checked by cardiology, opthamology, and urology and all has checked out fine. Our next stop is the geneticist. It has been quite a shock as no one in our families has hearing loss at a young age. I am with everyone else on here that while I know it could be a million times worse, it's still been hard. I always wonder what it's like for him, what he can and can't hear, if he gets scared, etc. All those things that a mother wonders. I too wonder what it will be like for him growing up, how he will be treated. Kids can be so mean to anyone who is different. I guess that's where we really have to step in as parents and make sure to raise a strong boy.
Are you linked up with the Early Intervention Program in your state? They send out, free of charge, services to evaluate the family, the child, and the home in order to get any additional services that may be needed and to educate the family on how to maximize the hearing environment for the child. They will also provide speech therapy if needed. They are basically there to catch any delays early and to ensure that the child has all that they need. I have just started with that process.
Oh, and you talked about the range that your child can hear. My son can't hear out of one ear below 50 and the other below 60. This weeks tests will show us more of what frequencies, etc. he can hear.
If you want to chat more, feel free to message me. Sounds like we're in the same boat. It's always nice to have someone to talk to who is going thru it too.
Nice to "meet" you.
I don't remember really seeing to many other people with hearing loss on here before, but in the past week it seems like there have been a lot of people. It is so nice to know that you aren't alone.
DD has a conductive and sensorineural hearing loss. She hears absolutely nothing. She also has a severe vision impairment.
She failed the screening for CIs before she came to us, because the little bones in her ears are all malformed--its called the Mondini effect. They are also very very tiny, in a way that is inproportionate to her already small body. We found a dr. who will do the CI surgery and thinks she'll be able to hear, but DD has a LOT of other stuff going on. Among those is being very tiny and we have to wait until she's a little heavier for it to be safe. We are going for the next step in our evaluation next week, though.
In the meantime, they want DD to have been aided (even though they don't think it'll help). The molds got sent off a few weeks ago and we just found out that her ears are literally too small to make them into hearing aids! So we're waiting for a bone conduction oscillator, which we're going to use vibro-tactiley. Even if the bone conduction does nothing to stimulate her ear, the tactile response will still give her feedback proportionate to the sounds around her. I'm just glad there's something. She's almost two and that's SUCH a long time to go with no feedback at all. (Not even sign).
wow I'm surprised to see posts about hearing loss. I'm the mother of a deaf 13mo old so I check on here once in a while in hopes of meeting other moms. The best thing you can do is find out all you can about hearing loss and and what can be done to help it. I found lots of comfort and help from other moms on blogs. They were able to help me go in the right direction and find help for my son without wasting any time. My son has a profound sensorineural hearing loss ( fancy for deaf) due to flawed Connexin 26 gene, he got from my husband and I. He had hearing aids from 3-9mo then at 9.5 mo he received bilateral cochlear implants and now is doing very well and is almost cought up to his peers. My blog has a list of other mothers with hearing loss so I suggest you take a look and hopefully they can help you like they helped me.( or feel free to e-mail me helen_mayson@hotmail.com)
Best wishes!!