Re: Conductive Loss and hearing aids.

January 10, 2000

BUT

>when we speak to her without the aids she understands so much. Get your

>Doll, Give me a Kiss, Wheres Daddy, Wheres , clap your hands,so big,

>etc. I was in the booth with her. I saw what she responded to and what

>she didn't. She only has three words Mama Dada and NO.

My daughter has a 55 dB in the main speech frequencies and she can

definitely hear voices and she understands slightly loud speech without

aids, MOST of the time. But there are lots and lots of sounds that she

doesn't hear unaided, and she does confuse words and she sometimes

completely misunderstands what is said to her, or doesn't respond at all.

The volume and pitch of normal speech varies considerably, so some sounds

are probably loud enough that your daughter can hear them, so she is aware

that you are talking. Also, you may be talking louder than you realize.

When my daughter was first aided I suddenly realized how loudly I spoke to

her.

A few months ago we got a new tv with a remote. When you change the volume

you get an on-screen display. It assigns the volume a number value. If I

am watching the tv when it is quiet I'm comfortable with the volume at 22.

If the kids are around I need it at 25 to hear it well.

My daughter, given a choice, will set the volume at 40 (when she doesn't

have her aids in). 40 is so loud that I can't comfortably have a

conversation 20 feet away from the t.v. because it is so loud.

Anyway, my whole point is that with a 55 dB loss you should expect your

daughter to respond to voices and she will possibly/probably be able to

communicate without aids, but it doesn't mean that she doesn't have a

hearing loss or that aids aren't helpful.

Aids have made a tremendous difference for my daughter, even though she

acquired completely normal speech and language without them, I can still

see that they really help her.

Also, my daughter relied on lip reading far more than we realized.

Barbara Handley

January 10, 2000

In a message dated 1/10/00 2:54:02 PM Eastern Standard Time,

handley@... writes:

> A few months ago we got a new tv with a remote. When you change the volume

> you get an on-screen display. It assigns the volume a number value. If I

> am watching the tv when it is quiet I'm comfortable with the volume at 22.

> If the kids are around I need it at 25 to hear it well.

>

Barbara, my TV has the same thing. Only when it is quiet I can hear at about

18 or 20, then add in background noise and I need the volume at about 36!

And I have had my hearing tested, keeps coming back normal, but add in

background noise and I am LOST!!

Orla

January 10, 2000

Colleen,

Please don't feel dumb! I realize how confusing it all is -- I'm still

trying to sort though it myself.

One thing I wanted to be sure to mention about " more power " for conductive

losses -- Beause an air conduction aid is more powerful than a straight bone

conduction aid, coupling an air conduction aid to a bone ossilator solves

this problem! This is exactly the setup my daughter has. Her air

conduction aid is hardwired with a cord that comes out where you would

normally attach the ear mold and connects to the ossilator behind her other

ear. In my daughter's case, a headband holds all this in place, as she has

no outer ear on which to hang and aid! Anyow, this frees up the DAI port to

connect her personal FM. As I mentioned before, you can also use the DAI to

connect the ossilator -- but if you have a personal FM, you would probably

want to consider hardwiring it.

So, if the audie tells you she needs more power -- this could be a solution.

Best to you. Keep us posted!

Dana

saddha@...

Conductive Loss and hearing aids.

>

> Dana,

> I feel so dumb right now. le did use the headband type when she

> was like 6 months old. As soon as they were comfortable to aid her,

> that is the first thing they tried. I didn't realize that it was called

> an air conduction aid. They referred to it as a regular bone conduction

> aid. They may of explained the difference but do not recall air

> conduction, but anything is possible. le was diagnosed at birth

> and it's been a really difficult process trying to finding out exactly

> what level of loss she has and for the first 6 months what type of loss

> she has. They did do a cat scan and it showed that the bones were

> malformed beyond repair. She was two months old at they time and she

> weighed about 6lbs. (She was two months premature) They claim the

> stapes is missing and the oval canal region and window are dense. While

> she wore the air conduction aid she didn't respond to much at all. But

> she was a baby. I was told by two audies it wasn't strong enough to

> push the sound through. That is why they went to behind the ear aids.

> They said she needed the power to push the sound through. She is now 16

> months old weighing 24.8 lbs. We just had to go through genetics again

> for the 3rd time since they are dying to place her in a syndrome and it

> came back again no syndrome found. The genetics doctor claims that if

> the cat scan results were correct she would have no balance. She walks

> and sits well. He claimed if the oval region window is dense she would

> not have good balance. The audie claims that a child compensates there

> other senses when one is missing or not there. Her peds seem to agree

> with the genetics doctor, and feels the cat scan should be repeated. So

> that is where we stand.

> They did discuss with me the implantable type but I was told that could

> not be done until she was 3 or 4 years old.

> I will diffidently talk to the audie about the other option, to couple

> an ossilator to her current hearing aids using the DAI port, reconfigure

> the internal settings if necessary remove the earmolds and attach to the

> headband. Thanks for that information.

> They did test le on Tuesday without the aids and she did alittle

> better than last time. The audie said she got a 55db loss in both ears

> this time. But as usual le was sick, she has an IGA deficianancy,

> and she catches everything. Her immune system is very low. She was

> very cooperative even though she was sick. The audie was very

> comfortable with the results. She claimed that I have to start at

> square root one when she pulls the aids out I have to put them back

> in. Well that is every few seconds or minutes, it is so frustrating,

> that she would rather hold a toy up to her ear to hear it, than wear her

> hearing aids. She leans her head on the TV so she can hear the TV. BUT

> when we speak to her without the aids she understands so much. Get your

> Doll, Give me a Kiss, Wheres Daddy, Wheres , clap your hands,so big,

> etc. I was in the booth with her. I saw what she responded to and what

> she didn't. She only has three words Mama Dada and NO. They claim she

> should have more. She just seems to respond to our voice all the time

> without the aids. Its so confusing to me. I have been putting them in

> and trying to build up her resistance to pulling them out. No success

> as of yet. But I will keep trying. Thank you so much for all the

> information and sorry to confuse you. Thanks again.

> Colleen.

>

> ---------------------------

January 11, 2000