14 months old hearin aids help/ Phonak Sky L90 SP or Phonak Sky L90 M

I don’t think is enough information to call the recommendation a major error. If it were an adult then yes , I don’t think the SP would be thr optimal choice.

Kids are prescribed higher gain values than adults. I would ask the specialist why he/she recommended the SP before calling it an error

But I’m not an expert so take my comment with a grain of salt .

@Neville: you are the expert , thoughts?

Why not the sky PR? Did you not want a rechargeable?

The phonak receivers are very quiet, so I wouldn’t worry about putting a child with this loss into the SP, but the M should be fine. I’d probably lightly prefer the headroom of the PR. Do you know the etiology of the loss? If there’s a high expectation of progression I might go with the SP. One ear or two? Why are you seeing two different audiologists? Now is the time for action more than it is for careful consideration–either hearing aid will support the child’s hearing, you just need to get them onto the child ASAP if it’s both ears.

@tenkan said:

very early for diagnosing hearing loss, I wonder how an audiogram is conducted at this age.

I’ve diagnosed hearing loss at a few weeks of age with ABR. But 14 months is right in the sweet spot of visual reinforcement audiometry and you can get very reliable results at that age. Basically you train a kid to expect a toy to light up whenever they hear a sound and then once they are reliably turning to look at the toy you drop the volume. There’s a transition from about 20-30 months that’s hard because they get bored of lighted toys and yet can’t do the waiting required for conditioned play audiometry. But my understanding is that a lot of places in America will just do sedated ABR rather than fitting from behavioral audiometry. Where I am we’re quite happy to fit from behavioral audiometry as long as it’s reliable–sedating a child for no reason seems odd.

my baby cousin was diagnosed at 2 months with an ABR and fitted with hearing aids 1 month later. the NHS are incredible for kids.

Yes, our goal is to, as possible, diagnose by 3 months and fit by 6, but often we fit much sooner. Earliest I’ve fit is probably 6 weeks, but the fight between well-fitted ear molds and baby growth is so dramatic at that age that I wouldn’t generally recommend it.

Unilateral loss isn’t quite the urgent situation because the child is still getting language experience.

It’s very accurate when you’re following correct procedures and the child is reliable. Sometimes you can only get a bit of information at a time so it takes extra appointments to get sufficient frequencies to fit from.

ADHD isn’t an issue. I’m not even sure it really presents significantly at that age? ASD can be very difficult though, and probably those are the ones to most often go to sedated ABR.

That all said, we’re usually fitting off ABR if things run as intended. Hearing is screened after birth and then they usually get to us at 8 weeks. Natural sleep ABR can usually be done out to five or six months. I did one on a three year old the other day, but sort of by accident because they fell asleep mid test.

Hi,

I’m a paediatric audiologist with more than 10 years experience working with children. Is there a particular reason why you haven’t been offered a rechargeable option? Are batteries funded for children in your region?

Physical fit and comfort is really important as is tamperproofing for the devices. Have you tried dummy aids behind the child’s ears to see what fits well?

Is there any reason why you’ve chosen Phonak devices? Oticon also make paediatric hearing aids which could also be an option. Phonak devices (at least the non-rechargeable ones) can have their housings changed from fun colours to hair colours if needed. Oticon housings aren’t exchangeable in the same way. Fun colours are easier to spot when your child removes and/or hides the devices.

The 90 level of technology is unnecessary for a child of this age. Most of the advanced features are disabled by default because the brains of young children work very differently to those of adults and their behaviour is also very different in that they don’t look at the person they’re listening to as frequently as adults do: they need to hear speech from all directions.

I wouldn’t recommend going above the 50 level of technology for a pre-schooler this young in the Phonak Lumity product. By the time they need more advanced features at school (year 2+) you’re probably going to need to upgrade as children’s aids tend to last only 4 - 5 years before they become unreliable due to the greater wear and tear for children’s objects in general. You’re better off putting the cost difference into a Phonak Roger wireless microphone like Roger On which will expose your child to language more easily as it can send your voice directly to the hearing aids while the range of the inbuilt microphones in the aids isn’t more than 1 - 2.5 metres in quiet and less in noise.

If you’re considering Oticon hearing aids, I would only recommend the top tier of technology (there are only two) due to limited input dynamic range in the lower tier which will give you significantly poorer performance in the types of noisy environments that children are in every day than the Phonak product at all levels of technology.

I wish you all the best in your journey. Remember, consistent regular use of hearing aids at least 10 hours per day and constant language exposure is necessary for continued speech and language development.

I’m going to hugely disagree with this.
(1) Costco does not prescribe aids to anyone under 18 yrs old .
(2) please provide facts that show that AuDs are not successful treating children .

OP: listen to the specialists! I’m not a specialist but @Neville and @Hearing_Potential are abd they know what they are talking about.

Many states in the US mandate that minors must be treated by an AuD.

Is Costco an option for youth under 18?

My 16 year old grandchild is in need of hearing aids with bilateral mild to moderate loss in both ears. On my recommendation, her mother called the local Costco to see about hearing aid options (the 16 year old wants CIC or nothing) and was told that they do not fit youth under 18. I have checked Costco’s Hearing-aid website and there is no mention of age requirements, and a phone call to corporate customer service gets lost in the ether. Does anybody here know if Costco has a corporate policy r…

Hold up, in no way do I disagree with what the pros are doing or said, I’ve only stated it would be hard to get an accurate result so young, pediatric audiology is completely different from the norm’s as I see it, especially at the age’s being mentioned here.

but at least the diaper /nappy aisle is around the corner!

as you see it sure. as the pros have said sometimes it is hard but they have years of training and experience and procedures based on decades of research to be able to get reliable test results from kids.