Another hearing test

Aidan had a massive ear infection in July. His first ever and it was nasty. When we took him into his ENT to have a look, we found out he had a lot more going on than "just" an ear infection. We got it all straightened out and still felt like he wasn't hearing well. She looked and both his tubes were still in place. So we decided to wait until he started preschool and then do the speech and hearing evals through AEA.

He had his hearing evaluated in October and didn't do so hot. I got a letter home that day that said he had failed in his left ear and if we wanted to take him in before we got the formal evaluation report back, we could. We decided to wait until we got it back. We got them back today and they were not good.

The audiologist says that he has "significant hearing loss" in his left ear. He is not at a "learning level" with that ear. The formal recommendation from AEA is to get him into his ENT asap and have him sit with his right ear towards the speaker and other kids. That was a little overwhelming. I knew he wasn't hearing, but I had no idea it was that bad. So I called his doctor and he goes in December 12. Hopefully it is just that he needs tubes again and this is permanent damage.

Tonight, Steve was talking to him and he kept saying "What?," "What did you say?," like always. So I told Steve to try talking near his right ear. So, we turned Aidan and Steve told him in the same tone of voice what he had said and he got it instantly. It was interesting because Steve was NOT facing his left ear, he was standing directly in front of him, and he still couldn't hear until Steve stood near his right ear. Explains why he sits on top of the TV, with it jacked way up and why he can't hear me. We went through all this before, but since he was hearing some of what we were saying, I didn't think it was so bad.

He had his speech evaluation done a couple of weeks ago and we haven't heard anything back yet on that. The audiologist said that his speech would more than likely be affected by his lack of hearing in his report, so I guess we'll just wait and see what the SLP said. If she takes as long as the other guy, it will be a while before we hear back.