Audiologist Appointment at Northeast Hearing and Speech

We had the second hearing screening at Northeast Hearing and Speech when Lucas was two weeks old. I hadn't seen any response to sound in that time, so wasn't feeling all that encouraged about it. I was hoping for the best, but preparing to get news I wasn't hoping for.

We got there and brought Lucas into their little hearing test booth. We had Noah with us as we didn't have a baby sitter, and it was obvious right away Norman and Noah would have to wait in the waiting room because the testing is supposed to be done in a quiet environment. There is nothing quiet about my two year old! They left, I was a little dissapointed because I knew Norman wanted to be there too, but that's life with two kids! I held Lucas on my chest while he was sleeping and she placed a little microphone in each ear one at a time. The first test was to check for fluid in his middle ear, it came back as clear. So that meant if he did have hearing loss, it wasn't due to any left over birth fluid. The second test sends sound down into the inner ear, and it records any sound that is echoed back by the hair cells. It gives a "pass" or "refer" anylasis. Apparently his kept coming back as "pass"/"refer"/"pass"/"refer". She said she wasn't able to get it to repeat, so we would have to go for further testing.

However, while she was sending the sound down into his ear, he stirred when it started (I could hear it since he was on my shoulder/chest). She said that even though the test didn't pick it up, she did see a "behavioural" response to the sound. She said she wasn't able to tell me how much hearing he had based on her tests. I asked her if that meant he probably had *some* hearing and wasn't completely lacking it, and she said Yes, probably.

We left the appointment dissapointed but feeling a bit encouraged over the "behavioural" response we saw.