Advice please: son doesn't want to wear HAs

jillio said:
If the parent wants it, I will. But I am not going to go to the trouble of digging it up and posting it otherwise. I have gone out of my way to do that in the past only to have people not even read it and continue their silly arguments.
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Oh OK...........But I don't think that's the case here. I think it will reassure rivenoak that an FM is not a GOTTA have. She just mentioned it offhand....I think in this case, she's thinking " Oh they're offering it as an accomondation. It MUST be a good accomondation."
 
rivenoak said:
Oh, I'm lurking right now! Not scared away.:giggle: Just a lot of things on my plate, so reading and processing.

But I will say that the overwhelming response seems to be, "FM sucks." So, I will definitely keep that in mind.

HA back from manufacturer. Appt w/ audi Thurs afternoon. I have a list of things to ask her based on information from this thread!

Thank you all!
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Well, I think there's no "one size fits all" answer. I've heard hearing losses compared to snowflakes, that is each hearing loss is as distinctive as a snowflake. So that makes it challenging to come up with the best approach for each person with a hearing loss.

Whether your son would find an FM system helpful would probably depend upon a few things. The most important thing would be -- how much distortion does your son have in his hearing? That question can at least be partially answered in what's called the word discrimination test. (I had sent you links to another web site with more info about that.)

If your son were to score low on that test, than it would probably mean that an FM system would not be helpful to him. All an FM system would do would bring distorted sounds closer to him. I would imagine that would be uncomfortable and perhaps even painful.

If your son were to score high on that test, then it would probably mean that an FM system, for some listening situations -- not all, would be helpful to him. An FM system is helpful mainly because it eliminates distortions added to sound because of distance. People with hearing loss have more trouble with that than people with statistically normal hearing.

But there are other factors in whether an FM system would be helpful. Like someone said upthread, the typical FM system assumes that the user only wants to hear ONE person. Obviously in a class room that's not true.

I'm pretty sure that the main reason kids go to school is to learn how to work and play with other people. Otherwise the goverment could save a heck of a lot of money and pass out books to all the parents of school age children and give them a schedule for when their children were expected to show up for tests.

Since, the typical FM system approach doesn't help with the fact that kids do go to school to learn how to be social with other kids I can see why, esp. in the lower primary grades, that would be another reason why kids might be better off in a school for the deaf and HH. But that would only be true, I think, if that school also focused on academic subjects and didn't spend large amounts of time on speech therapy. I think speech therapy can be appropriate but I don't think its ever appropriate for it to take away time from academic subjects. And apparently some schools for the deaf and hh do that -- but others in this thread will know more about that than me.

FWIW, I've used FM systems. My speech discrimination rate averages in the high 80%s. The way that percentage number works out for me in real life is that I do find an FM system useful, but I also find it tiring. It doesn't magically transform my weakest sense into my strongest sense. And I'm still dealing with my own natural distortion which takes a lot of energy and thinking to work around even in optimal listening conditions. And this is what my experience is as an adult. I never had the opportunity to use FM systems as a child, but I'm sure that a child with the same physical issues (e.g. high 80%s rate in WD tests) would not find it as helpful as an experienced adult. One factor that helps me is, as an audiologist put it, "you know the English language very, very well." That makes it easier for me to deal with that 10 - 15% distortion rate. But that is something that took time to learn, I certainly wasn't as fluent in English when I was a child as I am now as an adult.

Nevertheless it is useful to me and it has made it possible for me to attend classes and meetings that otherwise I would not have gotten anything out of.

Just as an FYI, there are such things as multi-channel FM systems -- but I've never heard of one that was larger than 8 channels. Its more expensive than a single channel FM system and I'm sure it still wouldn't help your son be able to hear every kid in his classroom as I'm sure there are more than 8.

So no easy answers, but I think the more you know, the easier it will be to come up with the best choice for your son.

Good luck with the appt on Thursday! And good luck with learning all this new info and with the future decisions you and your family will be making.
 
Bottesini said:
I think the HA on toys is a good idea too. You can buy hearing aids for Build a Bears.
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Thank you for mentioning that. I didn't know.

His summer program had Build A Bear come in one day. He made a bear and named it after himself.

Perhaps he would like his bear to have HAs, also.
 
deafbajagal said:
Many people think that the FM guarantees that the child will not miss anything. Wrong! It does eliminate a lot if background interferences, but it also cuts out everyone and everything else without direct access to the microphone (unless it's soundfield).
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Somehow, the reality and enormous implications of this had escaped me until just now as I read through the thread for the nth time.

:shock:
 
My daughter's school uses soundfield in the rooms as a standard element, and our CI clinic doesn't usually recommend FMs during the early ed years (with 4-5 kids max in an acoustically optimized classroom led by two+ teachers, it's not as though they are competing with crowd noises or environmental chaos you might find in a typical school).

But I've tried out FM systems to understand what they might provide, and with the two that I checked out I had the ability to adjust the mix of sound coming in through the mic vs. environment. So, I think FMs don't necessarily cut out incidental sounds (responses from and discussions among the students vs. teacher's conversation) -- unless you set them specifically to do so by making the ratio of mic input to background 10:0.

This was set up with CIs, though, so maybe the ability to adjust the mix is unique to CIs and some HAs don't have this ability -- I never used the telecoil or an FM boot with my daughter's HAs back when she was 1, though, so I don't know if that's so, sure others have the scoop on HAs & FMs.
 
GrendelQ said:
My daughter's school uses soundfield in the rooms as a standard element, and our CI clinic doesn't usually recommend FMs during the early ed years (with 4-5 kids max in an acoustically optimized classroom led by two+ teachers, it's not as though they are competing with crowd noises or environmental chaos you might find in a typical school).

But I've tried out FM systems to understand what they might provide, and with the two that I checked out I had the ability to adjust the mix of sound coming in through the mic vs. environment. So, I think FMs don't necessarily cut out incidental sounds (responses from and discussions among the students vs. teacher's conversation) -- unless you set them specifically to do so by making the ratio of mic input to background 10:0.

This was set up with CIs, though, so maybe the ability to adjust the mix is unique to CIs and some HAs don't have this ability -- I never used the telecoil or an FM boot with my daughter's HAs back when she was 1, though, so I don't know if that's so, sure others have the scoop on HAs & FMs.
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We've never used hearing loops or FM with Lotte in the beginning... We tried FM some time ago (see here or here) but the benefit that Lotte might have had was not worth the trouble. Later the school installed microphones in the classroom (see here) and that works fine. Also for the rest of the class.
We have tried a hearing-loop (person to person) but even though Lotte likes the novelty, she doesn't want the hassle..
At home we now have a hearing loop in the living room for when she wants to watch TV... That works fine... Not that she can't hear the TV otherwise, but she likes the fact that when we switch on the loopsystem... she can hear, and we can't....

Otherwise... she likes to use plain headphones when listning to music. and TV...
 
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How a fm system sounds to a hearing person is totally different than how it sounds to a HOH person. I got an fm system but it wasn't helpful. No idea what it would sound like in an optimal acoustic environment, though. I'm never in that kind of situation. Sounds great to me.
 
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deafbajagal said:
Many people think that the FM guarantees that the child will not miss anything. Wrong! It does eliminate a lot if background interferences, but it also cuts out everyone and everything else without direct access to the microphone (unless it's soundfield).
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I just wanted to say this isn't entirely correct. There are typically at least two settings on the FM. One where it's mic only, and another with mic+ backround noise. In other words, the student isn't cut off from sound they would otherwise have access to unless the FM was set to mic only.

I'm not thrilled about the FM system, but my son does benefit from using it. It's certainly not going to guarantee access to all speakers though, just helps with the one actually wearing the mic.
 
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Love it when a hearing person tells a deaf person what she a can hear. :-0
 
sallylou said:
Wirelessly posted (droid)

Love it when a hearing person tells a deaf person what she a can hear. :-0
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Just to clarify, if you thought I was describing what dbg was hearing through the fm systems I checked out ( out of curiosity): I wasn't, I don't know dbg, I had tried them out with my deaf daughter who told me what she could hear with the various settings.

But like cloggy, we found them to be a bit more troublethan they seemed worth, maybe someday we'll try them out for sports, but not useful at this point.
 
sallylou said:
Wirelessly posted (droid)

How a fm system sounds to a hearing person is totally different than how it sounds to a HOH person. I got an fm system but it wasn't helpful. No idea what it would sound like in an optimal acoustic environment, though. I'm never in that kind of situation. Sounds great to me.
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Exactly. I have only encountered one person that liked to use an FM system, and that was a late deafened, mild to moderate HOH woman in college. And even she cited several problems with it. However, she requested it as an accommodation, so it was provided for her.
 
CSign said:
I just wanted to say this isn't entirely correct. There are typically at least two settings on the FM. One where it's mic only, and another with mic+ backround noise. In other words, the student isn't cut off from sound they would otherwise have access to unless the FM was set to mic only.

I'm not thrilled about the FM system, but my son does benefit from using it. It's certainly not going to guarantee access to all speakers though, just the one actually wearing the mic.
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DBG had it right.

If you're not deaf and using the FM system, you can't quite get it right -- you can "test" it for yourself, but because you are hearing, you will not get the same results.
 
Jazzberry said:
I'm pretty sure that the main reason kids go to school is to learn how to work and play with other people. Otherwise the goverment could save a heck of a lot of money and pass out books to all the parents of school age children and give them a schedule for when their children were expected to show up for tests.

Since, the typical FM system approach doesn't help with the fact that kids do go to school to learn how to be social with other kids I can see why, esp. in the lower primary grades, that would be another reason why kids might be better off in a school for the deaf and HH. But that would only be true, I think, if that school also focused on academic subjects and didn't spend large amounts of time on speech therapy. I think speech therapy can be appropriate but I don't think its ever appropriate for it to take away time from academic subjects. And apparently some schools for the deaf and hh do that -- but others in this thread will know more about that than me.

.
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OMG, good point. Plus, I mean something like 90% of learning in the classroom is incidental.
 
AlleyCat said:
DBG had it right.

If you're not deaf and using the FM system, you can't quite get it right -- you can "test" it for yourself, but because you are hearing, you will not get the same results.
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Very true. I had an FM system that had two settings like CSign mentioned, mic and mic+background.

Mic amplified teacher's voice only but not very practical in university classroom settings where group discussions are very common.

Mic + background does pick up students' voices but this setting picks up ALL noises and amplify them so the students' voices would be mixed in with pens clattering, books dropping on desks, students talking amongst themselves, sounds of shoes on hard floors, etc etc. Its very distracting and overall, really irritating and exhausting to try to constantly separate the voices from other noises.
 
Now there it is. Deaf adults with experience with the equipment all grown up telling you stories and such and hearing parents telling you what they think.

All is good.

Remember this though... My mother thought the same as these hearing parents back then, and I am sure parents of many other posters who chimed in thought the same.

It's obvious by now which group of people I would spend more time getting feedback from.
 
deafdyke said:
OMG, good point. Plus, I mean something like 90% of learning in the classroom is incidental.
Cloggy said:
90% .. how do you figure that?
DeafCaroline said:
I don'r know about CI kids but I can certainly attest for the deaf kids with HAs, deafdyke's estimate is bang on.
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Sure, a lot at school is learned outside the classroom. Interactions with peers, adults etc... but inside the classroom..
I cannot see how that number could be even close.. It would mean they learn close to nothing at school....

Can you explain where that number comes from.... I must be missing something....
 
posts from hell said:
Now there it is. Deaf adults with experience with the equipment all grown up telling you stories and such and hearing parents telling you what they think.

All is good.

Remember this though... My mother thought the same as these hearing parents back then, and I am sure parents of many other posters who chimed in thought the same.

It's obvious by now which group of people I would spend more time getting feedback from.
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Hmm, you do realize that most of the 'evil' hearing parents here (and the evil medical professionals) are saying they don't find FM systems to be the cat's pajamas based on what the kids have told them, right? Are you suggesting we shouldn't be listening to our kids and ought to instead force them to use FM systems for all uses despite the drawbacks we've encountered?
 
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