Aiding the process
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
As many readers know already, Jonathan has some congenital deafness which mainly affects him (and a number of his relatives) in the right ear. We’ve been aware of this for ages, and Tom wrote a post about it back in July 2007.
From the tests that Jon had at the time, the conclusion was that his left ear was perfectly normal. However since then, we’ve been back to the local Children’s Hearing Centre several times and more recent tests have led them to revise this result.
Of course, testing with toddlers is far from precise(!), but as far as they can tell, Jon is not hearing the upper sound frequencies (the ones that give us all the soft “th”, “sh” and “es” sounds) at normal levels in his “good” (left) ear. Since his talking was also coming on a little more slowly than one might expect, the consultant asked if we’d be interested in having him fitted with a hearing aid for his left ear.
Image from Connevans Limited
Tom and I were both up for giving it a go, and within 10 days, Jon had received his new baby blue hearing aid courtesy of the NHS. It came with a very impressive paediatric “care kit” (left) including all sorts of bits and pieces from battery tester and drying container, to decorative stickers and attaching cords.
It’s now about 2 months since we started with the hearing aid, and Jon’s been pretty good about it on the whole. He doesn’t fuss about having it inserted in the morning (although post-lunchtime-nap he can be a bit more assertive about not wanting it), and he’s got over the phase where it got removed and dismantled whenever he felt the need for some excitement.
Everyone wants to know what difference it’s made, and naturally, it’s hard to tell. Jon’s language definitely has come on since then, although who can say to what degree it has helped. For reference, he’s now up to more than 50 single words and can say “Shhh!” with the best of them. 
What has been interesting to see though, is how getting this hearing aid has suddenly boosted us into the government-sponsored program of special treatment for Jon. It’s all optional of course, but we now get visited by a specialist speech therapist every other week (she’s lovely and comes from Westville!), and a teacher for hearing-impaired children on the the weeks we don’t see the therapist.
They’re both still in the assessment phase, but overall it’s great to have their added input on Jon’s speech development, and get tips on how to help him along. Given the severity of the impairment of some of the children that they deal with, it’s hard not to feel slightly fraudulent over all the high-quality attention we’re getting for Jon’s minor problems, but they’re happy to give it, so we’re just enjoying the ride for now!
