On the "Parents ' Reaction to Hearing Loss" page, a mother who clearly is suffering from guilt feelings, tells how after her daughter passed and failed infant/baby hearing tests, she did not take the child back for a follow up after the last failure. Now the child is two years old and barely speaks.
How often does this happen? I don't have any handy statistics on how frequently parents fail to bring their children back for follow-up hearing screenings , but this illustrates what can happen. Hearing screenings at birth are only "initial" screenings; parents need to follow up when the baby does not pass the newborn hearing screening.
I believe the follow up rate is around 91%. It is rare for parents not to follow up, but pediatricians need to not say things like “It’s only fluid”, because it might be, but it also might be a hearing loss.
Hi. I have just been reading your blog. Very interesting.
I was so sure our son couldn’t hear when he was 9 months old and it took the specialists 5 months to listen to me.
Not quite the same but I relate to it. So wish he could have been tested early.
You know my first son was born deaf. My second child passed her newborn screen. At six months old I was advised to bring in for cautionary follow-up. I did not. She seemed fine. By 8 mos she could say MAMA, DADA, NANNY but my mom insisted I talk to the doc, she had susupicions. I was the parent expert, I was the one w/a deaf child…at 9 mos, we took her in so I could prove my mom wrong. We left w/an audiogram stating she was moderate, almost severe in her loss!!! Good thing I know when to obey my Mom! Both of mine wear ci’s now.
My daughter was given an inconclusive for the new born hearing test-told it could be gunk in the ears-took her back 2mos later- told inconclusive- told could be that she was not asleep enough? whatever that meant. Took her in again-inconclusive-told she was to stuffed up to tell. By the third time-it was coming clear that the son that I had in 8mos. of speech therapy was in fact profoundly deaf. The same person that test him then fail our daughter and she was also found to be profoundly deaf. We have never had anyone on both sides of the family have hearing problems-so it just wasn’t something that we thought of. I should mention that my son’s hearing was tested at about 11mos old and we were told there were no problems. After being in speech therapy for 8mos. we were told that something else was going on and they thought it was his brain was not connecting with his voicing. We had a list of things that he was to be checked out for -which hearing was one and that test the lady actually said if she didn’t read our reportings-he would have passed that day-Luckly she failed him and he was put under to be tested. They are both conx26. We have some quilt -our children had no access to language and they have suffered in schooling.
In the 70s when my daughter was about 14 months to 18 months she was very “preoccupied” and wouldnt mind anything I said…I was a 19 year old parent and took her to the children’s clinic. The pediatrician told me my daughter was “spoiled roitten” and I needed to get a peach tree limb and make her mind! I did switch her lightly couple of times, but broke my heart. Then we took her to state hearing loss center where they ’strapped’ her in a chair, she screamed constantly, and we were told “Your daughter is deaf, bring back at age 6 and enroll in deaf school” I wrote letter to the pediatrician and told him ’scolding’ him for his attitude. (He founded the local hospital INFANT testing in hospitals here later:)
At 28 months after a search I moved and enrolled her in a Montessorri preschool based on intergrating the hearing impaired in public schools! Long story short, she is now 40 and completed college on a basketball scholarship and now is AuditorCoder over 8 hopitals..awesome! Parents be the voice for your infants!