I moved from Texas to North Carolina, when my daughter was almost 5 months old. It took us about a month to get settled into our new home. After we got settle it was time to begin determining what the next step was to correct my daughter’s hearing loss. Being new to the area, I found that it was difficult to find providers who specialized in advanced hearing loss, especially, since we were living in a small town. The closest specialists who were able to deal with my daughter’s stage of hearing loss were over two or more hours away from our house.
Disclosure: This post is for informational purposes and shouldn’t replace appropriate medical advice from a doctor or audiologist regarding your child’s hearing. The information that I provided was based upon my own experience with my daughter’s hearing loss and the process that I went through.
Before we moved to NC, my daughter began receiving services from Early Childhood Intervention. This is a free program that is available for children who have special needs. The goal of the program is to help assist parents with locating services and they even provide some services as well. After moving, my daughter picked up where the Early Intervention specialist left off. They began teaching my daughter sign language using play therapy. It is important that your child gets some type of language support as quickly as possible if they have a hearing loss. Your child needs to be able to communicate, whether it be using sign language, speech, or a combination of both.
I took her to see her new pediatrician so that I could get help finding the right providers so that I could pursue the next step. The pediatricians office sent her to see a local ear, nose, and throat doctor (ENT) for an evaluation. The ENT suggested that we attempt to put hearing aids on my daughter. As a mom, I was kinda annoyed with this step but for medical documentation purposes it was a necessary step. It helped doctors to determine if she was eligible for a cochlear implant. So they fitted my daughter with hearing aids, similar to the one in the photo.
Comments
10 responses to “Hearing Aids Were an Epic Fail – My Daughter’s Story”
Our child does not use a hearing aid. My first cousin though would have benefited greatly with early detection of her hearing loss.
Cynthia thank you for sharing your cousin’s story. Early detection makes a huge difference.
My daughter needed occupational therapy for failure to thrive, but it took months to prove the need. She’s okay now, but I was bitter for quite a while. Bitterness didn’t help her — or me — to move forward. It’s tough wanting more for our kids than we can get.
I can’t imagine the frustration that you felt while dealing with your daughter’s medical condition. Thank you for sharing your story.
I know how frustrating this can be. My daughter is legally blind in one eye and has weak eye muscles that make her eye turn in. When we moved the closest pediatric opthamologist was three hours away and after we drive all the way down he spent less than ten minutes with use, basically called her last doctor and idiot and refused to even discuss surgery, which was part of the reason we had gone to see him. Eventually we found another doctor willing to see a child so young and we’ve gotten much better care, thankfully. I’m so glad you were able to find providers that worked with you and helped your family make decisions.
I always hate finding new doctors. Luckily, I have been lucky and haven’t had any issues.
What? So much work for what seemed like a much easier fix. How old was she when she began interactive playing to learn sign language?
Sharon she was roughly 6 months old when she started learning sign language. She is very fluent in Sign Language, I will discuss that in my next few posts. 🙂
Oh! I’m sorry your daughter has had to go through this. I really hope there is something that can be done soon.
Thank you Lexie.