Hearing and Kids

As I discussed in last week’s post, audiologists need to work more towards helping kids talk about feelings about living with a hearing loss. Some discussion can take place during audiological evaluations. When we discuss test results with kids we can watch kids’ faces and see if they are comfortable. As we give them the opportunity to ask questions we

When a hearing loss is identified, we all spend lots of time talking to families. We help them understand basics of hearing loss, how to read an audiogram, management options etc. Babies obviously do not get much counseling. But as kids get older, we really need to revisit all these topics with them. This hit me many years ago (I

This issue of the blog is being written by my good friend Johnnie Sexton. Johnnie  has worked with children who are deaf and hard of hearing for 33 years.  In recent years, he designed the early intervention system for audiology in North Carolina.  He has devoted his energy in the past 2 years to redefining counseling for families with children who

A friend shared this puzzler with me recently. You have probably seen things like this before. Try and read it, and while you are doing so, think about how kids with hearing loss have to figure things out receiving an incomplete message. 7H15 M3554G3 53RV35 7O PR0V3 H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5! 1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5! 1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG 17

Hearing loss today is not what it was when I started in this profession 45 years ago. (And, believe me, that’s a good thing!) It is not the same as it was 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago. People with hearing loss have more options now than they did in the past. Technology has improved so dramatically that

Who makes up the team for managing hearing loss in children? Hearing loss is complicated and the bigger the team the better chance we have of meeting the needs of a child with hearing loss. Some of the team members are obvious. The permanent fixtures of the team are the child, parents, extended family, the audiologist, pediatrician and otolaryngologist. Other

SPEECH PERCEPTION – THE BASICS The real goal of technology is to assure that kids are hearing and understanding speech. First we need to know if the hearing aids are set appropriately (see HOW DO I KNOW IF THE HEARING AIDS ARE WORKING WELL?) Next we need to look at how well the child understands speech. This is a big

This, of course, is the 64 million dollar question. The answer is “don’t assume.” There is only one way to know if hearing aids are doing well. Test them. Asking an adult with hearing loss if he is hearing okay with hearing aids is not necessarily going to give you the info you want because he may not have realistic

Telling parents that their perfect new baby has a hearing loss is one of the most difficult things I ever have to do as an audiologist. After more years of doing this than I want to admit to, it still makes me sad to break bad news. Understanding our own emotions about this helps us deal with the emotions of