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Special Needs
Q for moms w/LO's with hearing issues
What was your first sign that LO had a hearing issue? What age was your LO?
Our LO passed the hearing test prior to being discharged from the NICU. All along he seemed to be hearing us, but recently I feel like he can't hear as well. For example, you can walk up behind him and clap or snap near his ears and he does not turn to look. Lately he has seemed a little confused, like he will look at you with a puzzled look when you are talking to him or singing to him. He does not repeat sounds such as babbling (I know it's a little early to expect him to do that consistently but still it seems odd).
Over the past two weeks he has been dealing with Infantile Spasms (a type of seizure that is bad for his brain) but I'm not sure if that is causing some issues with his hearing or not.
We are getting a hearing test through the local AEA sometime in the next few weeks. I guess I am interested to hear how others discovered that their LO wasn't hearing at a typical level.
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Re: Q for moms w/LO's with hearing issues
My son failed his newborn screening, and then the follow up ABR at 1 month. I knew, because he didn't respond to loud noises.
He wears hearing aids, and has since he was almost 4 months old.
What is the AEA? Make sure he is having an ABR, OAE by a pediatric audiologist.
Nate also failed his newborn screening and has been aided since 3 months old. The first time I saw him startle was when we first put in the aids.
I am also not familiar with the acronym you mentioned. Nate had and ABR and now is doing behavioral response testing (looking towards the sound) in the testing booth. We started going to just a regular audiologist who we were referred to by the NICU, but we are also seeing an the audiologist at our local school for the deaf and a Pedi ENT at Johns Hopkins as "backup".
Thanks for the replies! AEA = Area Education Agency. They do our EI and have an audiologist that will do the tests.
I am taking him in to the Dr today to rule out some other ear issue (fluid, infection, etc). Hearing test will be on Thursday.
We just got back from the Dr and he does not have an infection or fluid. On to the hearing test tomorrow.
@ylgirl, does your LO hear anything on his own?
Sorry I forgot to add that he had a sedated ABR and was diagnosed with severe to profound hearing loss. The hearing aids did nothing still so he was diagnosed with profound. He now has one cochlear and we are working on getting him to recognize sound. So in answer to your question, no he didn't hear anything on his own. Now he does with the cochlear.
MrsA808,
I feel like you and I could write the same posts! As you know my daughter also has Infantile Spasms. She passed her hearing test at birth also. One of the first things we noticed that clued us into something being different about her was her hearing. My husband would clap his hands behind her and she wouldn't startle. We have 2 big labradors and when they would bark right next to her she wouldn't even move.
Fast forward to when she was diagnosed with IS. As soon as the medication started working we noticed that she started to respond to noises. She startles now and looks at us when we talk to her. She's 14 months old and doesn't babble. But, the last few weeks she has started to make different noises. The doctor explained it to us in a way that made sense. The IS was like a traffic jam in her head, everything was jumbled around. Now that that has cleared all of her senses are going to work again.
I hope this is the case for your son too.