Hearing Tests for Preschoolers...

I just talked to my Ped about it with my 3 year old and they had a hearing specialist that came once a week to the office. They did the test and he passed with flying colors. His was selective hearing :o) or should I say selective ignoring, LOL.
J.

Hi S.,

I know you've received some good feedback and you are choosing to wait and/or seek the opinions of preschool teachers and eventually the pre-k screening, but I thought I would chime in.

I would encourage you to ask for a referral (if you need a referral to a specialist, that is) to see an audiologist. The audiologist will perform the battery of tests in the sound booth and also determine if there is nerve damage by hooking small electrodes to the child's forehead. If she checks out, GREAT! But, if there is a hearing problem identified, you can take whatever measures are appropriate for your family to ensure she is getting all of the pieces of information in speech and language to succeed in her communcation.

My little guy was identified at birth with a hearing loss and I've learned so much over the last couple of years. Did you know that even a child with a very very mild hearing loss may not hear parts of our speech and instead of using "We are going to the park", may only understand and say "We go to park" - missing out on a big portion of how normal speech and language develops. Or they may only hear "I see the bird" when you are actually saying "I see the birds".

So, I guess what I'm trying to say, is even a child with a very very mild hearing loss can miss out on large pieces of conversations - may seem small right now, but as the child gets older, intelligibility needs to grow with them.

I hope all is well with your daughter and chances are, if she's speaking normally, she's probably hearing normally - but it's better to check it out now, than realize it later.

Take Care!
M.

S.,

It sounds like that was a very inaccurate test. My son has had numerous hearing tests because of recurrent ear infections. We have seen an ENT, although it was on a referral because of the ear infections. I would say, if your doctor was worried about your daughter's hearing he/she would definitly have given you a referral. If you are nervous, you do always have the option.
A more affordable option you might want to consider is your local school district. Children are supposed to got through preschool screening before they are 4 years old. With that screening they do a vision and hearing test. You would get two things accomplished in one visit that way. At least in my experience in our school district, the woman who did my son's hearing test was every bit as good as the ENT we had to pay for.
Good luck.

Hi S.,
My 3 year old has unilateral hearing loss/deafness. We went to a few Doctors locally & he tested poorly. Since then we have been driving down to Mayo Clinic to see Dr Driscoll, a pediatric ENT. The audiologist & assistant that they have are FANTASTIC!! They should have a cartoon of their own!! My son was always afraid of the hearing tests. These audiologist had us laughing so hard! =) He passed more tests accurately. He now wears a bone-conductive hearing aid. We KNOW this is the best care for our son. It is worth the drive from the Twin Cities, even on our tight budget.
I can't remember the exact name of Audiologist, but if you message me, I will look up his record.
Hope this helps! =)

my son has had hearing tests at the U of M. Theya re more age appropiate and dont always use pictures. I would call them.
S.

My guy has gone to an ENT a couple of times. The first one I didn't like, but we finally found one that we really like. First they will check how the membrane vibrates with head phones. This way they can tell if there is fluid in there. Then they put them in a sound booth and have them repeat words that the technician says to them. They do that in different ears and had different volumes. After that they will do the beeping thing at different volumes so they can tell if which sounds they have problems and at what decibel level. We found out that my son has minor hearing loss at the very lowest range of sound.

We went to Dr. Browning through Park Nicollet. She's really nice and the whole office seems to be great with kids. She's on maternity leave right now, but I'm sure her replacement is just as nice.

I never took my kids to see an ENT for that but I too agree that the test are somewhat questionable. Neither of my children have had hearing impairments so I was not worried. They seem to be just too young to understand when to raise there hands when they hear the noise (ours were obviously very basic.) Our school district does these tests at pre-K screening, kindergarten and first grade by the nurse and speech patholigist. These seem to be more reliable. I would not hesitate to go to a specialist especially if you think your child may have a problem....Mother's instinct is always best!!!!!!!!!!

S.:
I have used an ENT for my daughter when she was about that same age. We were glad we did, we found she lost a BIG amount of hearing, more than 50%. I say go for it, try to find one that specializes with children, it does make a difference.

T.

My son is 3 now and in January we had him in to the ENT so that was about 2 1/2 years old. The dr was great with him. They found that my son had a mild hearing loss.

You can have a kindergarten screening readiness test done which is mandatory in all districts to go to kindergarten and they will test her hearing as well as vision and everything else. They start the testing at 3.5 years old. We caught my daughter's problem- delayed gross motor skills and my cousins child they caught she is almost blind in one eye. They're really good. It's free.

Otherwise call a ENT doctor and ask what they think you should do? Go with your gut feeling and early intervention is always so good.