In need of advice

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kayrosekay14

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Hi my name is kayliegh. I am hearing. I have a 4 year old son who has been diagnosed with autism and suffered from over 20 ear infections before he turned 18 months old and has had two ear tube surgeries to date. We have had him to an audiologist who says he can hear. But he's gonna be 5 in January and tries to speak to us and repeat the television but he is very very difficult to understand and often makes up sounds for what he hears. I know he isn't deaf and that he can hear different ranges of tones but I often wonder if his hearing is muffled or something like that because of his inability to communicate with us. Perhaps due to his history of ear infections. I don't know what to do and how to have him checked for this possible hearing loss. So I write in this forum in hopes of advice as how to go about getting him diagnosed and on a path of signing and communication. Thank you for your time. I hope to hear back from someone
 
PECS board might be more effective for a hearing non verbal autistic.
 
Bottesini said:
PECS board might be more effective for a hearing non verbal autistic.
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Very true. When it comes to autism, autistic interventions do better then dhh.. Parents sometimes come here assuming that ASL is THE ANSWER for their autistic kid, when generally autistic kids can only use Sign in an augmentive/alternative fashion (ie some signs used to express basic needs, rather then as a language) . Although on the other hand there might be a chance that he's also severely HOH, and that is why he is not progressing with his speech.
 
kayrosekay14 said:
Hi my name is kayliegh. I am hearing. I have a 4 year old son who has been diagnosed with autism and suffered from over 20 ear infections before he turned 18 months old and has had two ear tube surgeries to date. We have had him to an audiologist who says he can hear. But he's gonna be 5 in January and tries to speak to us and repeat the television but he is very very difficult to understand and often makes up sounds for what he hears. I know he isn't deaf and that he can hear different ranges of tones but I often wonder if his hearing is muffled or something like that because of his inability to communicate with us. Perhaps due to his history of ear infections. I don't know what to do and how to have him checked for this possible hearing loss. So I write in this forum in hopes of advice as how to go about getting him diagnosed and on a path of signing and communication. Thank you for your time. I hope to hear back from someone
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With his autism, I don't know much about it, but would it be possible for you to take him to the ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat specialist)? The specialist might look or check into his ear canal. But both Botti and Torrie knows about autism. I wish I could help. :(
 
kayrosekay14, if you haven't already read them, books by noted and international speaker Dr. Temple Grandin, could be helpful. http://www.templegrandin.com/

She happens to have autism. She's also a writer, presenter, scientist and acclaimed designer of more humane slaughtering facilities. She writes from her perspective about her views of many things, including how it is to have autism.
I've worked with adults and kids with more severe autism. I've learned a lot from her.

Social communication and interaction difficulties are very common in young children with autism, in my experience, it's part of the autism.
I'm wondering if you have any therapists who could tell you more about this, or a support group in your area for parents of young kids with autism?
 
over the time he must had a degree of pain and like Beb I think ENT then go from there
 
Bebonang said:
With his autism, I don't know much about it, but would it be possible for you to take him to the ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat specialist)? The specialist might look or check into his ear canal. But both Botti and Torrie knows about autism. I wish I could help. :(
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He does visit and ent and has seen an audiologist. He isn't very cooperative for testing. They know he can hear different tones but I wonder if he hears muffled sounds. I shouldn't have posted that he was autistic because everyone is jumping on that and not my actual question so thank you for actually reading what I wrote.
 
As his mother I feel that the autism is only part of this. I have a gut feeling that there is more to it and that he isn't hearing properly. He did suffer from so many problems with his ears at a very young age and my reading says that it's very possible to have hearing loss after half of the problems he has had. I have the autism in check and school and therapy I don't need help with that I want to know how to get the right checks for his ears to see about his hearing
 
not audi a ent surgen and go back to drawing bord..Medic have habbit of just looking at the subject that they deal with looking at child holistcaly seems be problem these days.
sign helps some children but over all it not helps majority.For my daughter (BSL)IT DID HELP she was in autistic spectrum but she has many other problems and I happened to be within deaf community at the time for other reasons so it hard to say if it was the signing that helped I will never know.
My daughter repeated tv all the time she also had surgery for infection all I can say is it righted itself as time went on but she still has habbit of repeating like she call me by Christian name only because my grandson do..She 30 now and never going to change but I remember I was pulling my hair out at the time taking her to every doc and hospital I could but if had time over I would not have done
 
Learning to sign can only help. In no way can it have a detrimental effect. It sounds like you need a full, comprehensive hearing exam. What have the Speech and Language Pathologists said? BTW I have Asperger's.
 
kayrosekay14 said:
As his mother I feel that the autism is only part of this. I have a gut feeling that there is more to it and that he isn't hearing properly. He did suffer from so many problems with his ears at a very young age and my reading says that it's very possible to have hearing loss after half of the problems he has had. I have the autism in check and school and therapy I don't need help with that I want to know how to get the right checks for his ears to see about his hearing
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Hmmmm..... Maybe there's something there. I mean I know that back in the old days, a lot of dhh kids were labeled as autistic. Do you have access to a really good University based hospital that is experianced with testing kids who are hard to test? Contact this organization:http://deafchildren.org/ There used to be a suborganization that was for dhh autistic kids. They may have information on how to detect a hearing loss in autistic or kids who are hard to test! I think it might be cool if it turned out he was more dhh, and the autism was more secondary/ Asperger's style....... Follow your gut, maybe there's something there!
 
soutthpaw said:
Learning to sign can only help. In no way can it have a detrimental effect. It sounds like you need a full, comprehensive hearing exam. What have the Speech and Language Pathologists said? BTW I have Asperger's.
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Yes, but just to clarify, severe/significent autistic kids generally cannot use it as a full language, but more as an augmentive and alternative communication system.
I wish we had Makaton here in North America. That would be an amazing option for classicly/severe/significent autistic kids.
 
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