Hearing Test

Brian's hearing test went really well! They decided to change the way he is tested today to a more advanced test. In the past he has been conditioned to respond to a sound by turning his head toward it. When he hears the sound and turns his head an image pops up on a screen or a stuffed animal starts dancing in a lighted box.

Since he's almost 2, they decided to try to teach him to respond to sound by dropping a cube in a bucket, or stacking a ring onto a tube. Usually they would not start this until a child is 2, but Shana, our audiologist wanted to give it a whirl since Brian is typically responsive to new things and is "bright" as she put it.

From my point of view he didn't do a great job. He was kind of shy about it and then once he got more comfortable, he got kind of silly with it. He probably performed accurately about 3/4 of the time. They thought he did great though and were really excited about it.

Anyway, he tested slight to mild in terms of loss for both ears. The results were more like the results we were getting when he was very young and still testing with the ABR. This is GREAT NEWS! This reassures us that PE tubes were absolutely the best decision we could have made. Basically he has has fluid in his ears every other booth test until now and without the fluid, he tested at the same levels as he was testing early on. This means his loss has never really progressed since birth, which is AMAZING!

Shana fully agreed from the little time she observed Brian that his speech and language development is above and beyond on target. She said we will just keep doing what we're doing, which means another test in 6 months to make sure his hearing is still where it was today. This is also great news because I get SUPER stressed out by these tests, so limiting them to twice a year is so much better for me (and Brian in the long run)!! Shana actually said that if he keeps testing this way we will eventually only need to come once a year (probably once he turns 3). YAY!

We will actually retest in November because Shana is pregnant and won't be back from maternity leave until then. Between now and then we will see the ENT (in June) to check the PE tubes (both were still in an open today...right was not as open as left, but he has a runny nose on the right side, which probably accounts for this). That is scheduled for the day after B turns 2, June 25th.