Hearing Test

Nolan had a hearing test yesterday. The audiologist called and bumped the test up to 1:00pm, which was fine by me: our original time was 4:00pm and we have a 2 hour drive each way. I like getting home before nightfall.

There was no assistant available for the test, so our audiologist told me to wait outside with Matthew while she took Nolan into the booth. He did the test on his own, and raised his hand for the tones. This is the first time he has done "adult" type testing, rather than play audiometry.

The testing went very quickly - it only took about 20 minutes and he was done. His left ear has actually fluctuated up a bit, and is more of a moderate loss rather than moderately severe. This always makes me anxious as to the accuracy of the test, since that ear has been sitting at 65dB for the past two years. Still, it is what it is - I think the audiologist turned down the volume of that hearing aid to match the day's test result. I'm not exactly sure, though.

The right ear looks like it did in July, with that drop down to 70dB in the high frequencies. He's sporting a 75dB loss across the rest of the lower frequencies, though the additional loss is probably due to his active ear infection. He's normally 65dB dropping to 70dB.

Unaided speech recognition was 80% at 100dB for the right ear and 96% at 80dB for the left ear.  I'll post his audiogram when we get it in the mail.

Since both boys were very good during the hearing test, I took them to Chuck E. Cheese after the hearing test. I had a coupon for 100 tokens for $20, and the boys were in heaven.

Nolan's right hearing aid won't be worn for a while. The ear is still leaking (despite antibiotics), so hopefully it will dry up soon. He has an appointment with his ENT on Monday the 15th, so we'll see what she thinks about the continuing ear infections. He's been averaging an ear infection every-other month, always in that right ear.