Jarrah - Aus Hearing checkup

Tues, 4th Nov - Well, the good news keeps on coming! It's been a long time coming, but at least it's coming! Grab it, with both hands, and don't ever, ever let go!

Today was another routine check-up at Australian Hearing for Jarrah. They've been happening every 3 months because his levels have been fluctuating so much, so he's starting to get a little bored of the puppet game. The VROA (Visual Reinforcement Orientation Audiometry) is where they put little pipes in his ears, play sounds at various frequencies and levels through the pipes, and when he responds by turning to the sound he's "rewarded" by something visual, usually a puppet lit up in a box, hence my term "puppet test". The plan for today was to try a different method of testing, designed for slightly older children, but because of the work he's been doing at Yeerongpilly it was considered that he should cope fine. Unfortunately our regular audiologist was not at today's appointment, so that different method of testing was not used, even though i mentioned that it had been discussed and approved at our last appointment.

Nevermind, we had another go with the puppets. Ears were checked and clear, grommets were in place and open, and Jarrah had slept reasonably well last night so he was in a very good frame of mind for testing, thankfully! The priority was to get clear results on the right ear, since we hadn't had any decent results from that ear since January, so they began with that side. I can usually hear some of the tones as the test goes by, but today i heard very little...which made me wonder whether they were testing much, or if Jarrah was hearing well. But then, i could see when it was a response because they showed the puppet!

Jarrah lost interest part-way through testing the left ear, but the results they did get were not different from the previous test, so they were deemed accurate. What we did get was this:

Right ear:

250Hz - 75db (previously 70db, so within margin of error)

500Hz - 70db (previously 70 or 75db, so within margin of error)

1kHz - 60db (previously 85-90db, so significantly improved!!)

2kHz - 70db (previously 65db, so within margin of error)

4kHz - 60db (previously 105db, so significantly improved!!)

Left ear:

1kHz - 75db (previously 70-75db, so within margin of error)

4kHz - 80-85db (previously 90-105db, so some improvement)

These are virtually the same results as Jarrah returned at the test immediately after he was fitted with hearing aids nearly 12 months ago, in fact the left ear 4kHz result is actually slightly better.

HOORAY!!

This for me confirms the decision of the Mater Implant audiologist who was of the opinion that Jarrah was not in need of cochlear implants, and tells me that most of the fluctuations we've seen throughout 2008 have been due to middle ear conditions. Therefore, if we can keep J's middle ears healthy (ie. infection-free), then with his hearing aids he should do just fine.

By the way, he's trying to say lots of words like "eggshell" and "truck" and "clock" these days, and his favourite song atm is "Bananas In Pajamas", which kind of sounds like "naa ni ni, naa ni ni, aaaaah naa ni ni, naa ni ni..." I must confess it took me a few days to figure out which song that was... :-)

Next appt: Fri 5th Dec, Kaelen's Aus Hearing check-up