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My child and his hearing test results

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My 6 yr old son has went for his pediatric yearly and passed the hearing and vision tests fine.

He had a follow up with ent this past week as had a few ear infections a few years back and kept the yearly follow up.

During the appointment the Dr did hearing test. When she finished and sat down to go over everything is when I got CRUSHED…… she suggested full time hearing aid wear. Where I’m shocked is his hearing test was between flat between 18-22 decibel loss. She said word recognition was good but he had a slow response while trying words with background noise. She put this down to Auditory Processing. Only thing I can say we noticed is watching tv extra loud, iPad close to face and asks for car radio off if he is listening to iPad in back……

Has anyone else aided their kid with a mild loss like this? I almost feel like it’s over kill?

The next question is because of my loss; could it be hereditary? Mine was not known until my late 20’s. Because of this and the fact it wasn’t at birth - does this rule out genetic? ( Mine started mild 25-30 loss and know as you see in bio it’s more than doubled - especially dropped constantly yearly last 4/5 years?

Sorry for the ramble but quite taken back by this. Luckily knowing what aids do for me - I’m fine if he needs them. Just not sure if he needs them now, or wait and monitor. In general he hears great and not sure putting big hearing aids on him for what appears a very mild loss is the correct thing to do.

All feed back greatly appreciated.

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Unfortunately I never asked for a copy. I will get next week when we go back. Thanks.

Edited

Can’t comment on most of your questions but I do know that a mild loss is a lot more significant for kids because they’re just learning language. Restoring those sounds can make learning speech a lot easier. Has he seen a pediatric audiologist yet? @Neville Could you comment on OP’s post? Thanks.

Yes the office he went to has a pediatric branch and that’s who did the testing.

Any chance you could send me a copy of your son’s ? Although generally, if a pediatric audiologist is recommending hearing aids that’s the way to go–they won’t typically recommend if they are not needed. A flat 20 loss won’t generally push a child into hearing aid territory, but a classroom system should be put in for sure. “Mild” hearing loss is the same as someone with normal hearing wearing earplugs all day and can be pretty significant.

If you developed hearing loss that young there’s a strong chance that it could be genetic and therefore some chance your son could have inherited it, although mild permanent hearing loss can also be the result of chronic ear infections. Can you have a genetic panel run? If nothing comes up, that won’t totally rule out a genetic cause because there are genetics we don’t know about, but ruling it in may help to understand what might be expected re: progression. The other thing I might look at–although given that your son is already six chances may be low–in a lot of places babies are screened for various things and then in some places the bloodspot they use for screening is stored long-term. Can his bloodspot be checked again for cCMV?

Most kids are less bothered by wearing hearing aids than adults, and while peer acceptance and “I don’t want to be different” does play a role, the culture is much better than it used to be–it can be bad around 10-12, but depends on the child and their friends. Having a parent who has a supportive, no nonesense attitude about it helps. Letting the child pick their own fun colours so that they have some buy-in helps. Giving the child easy scripts for what to say when other children do ask about their hearing aids helps. Connecting with other families so that your child has friends with hearing aids helps. Having a parent who is very concerned about the visibility of the hearing aids hurts.

Neville offers us usual excellent thoughts. My thoughts are - what are the downside risks of starting now? If it helps him learn and communicate even a little more easily, then that seems a win to me.

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