Loudness

Oh... so you understand the scream I am talking about. It generally happens when he doesn't get his own way (typical 3 year old :giggle:) but A LOT louder and higher pitched than normal.

So, how come your daughter can hear sound but not understand it? Is there another diagnosis that makes this happen? How do you know if your child fits this?

Tyler is 3 and no speech - absolutely no words (mind you his older brother who is hearing didn't speak until he was 3 too). Tyler understands commands and tries to communicate. I'm hearing small attempts at words "more, up, hi" but not very clear and not very consistent.
 
Ooooh, I remember the sounds my daughter made before we went with a cochlear implant: we were convinced she could speak with the dolphins! It was an amazingly loud, high-pitched sound (our dog would race through the dog door). Very cool in an unearthly sort of way, and frequent! Even when she quickly learned to say mamama (which was surprising, because she was profoundly deaf from birth AND spent her first year in China, where no one was saying or mouthing mama :) ), it was in a very high, nasal voice. I loved it, of course, but yes -- on airplanes and public places people always looked surprised or startled to hear such a piercing voice from a tiny little one.

Now that she's speaking fluently, I would have expected "cochlear voice," which I've read is typically at a higher pitch, but I don't notice much difference between her voice and that of hearing peers. Little girls can sure hit some awfully high notes when they are excited, though, we had a hatching of new chicks in the backyard and I thought we'd lose the crystal stemware for sure :)
 
ryancher said:
Oh... so you understand the scream I am talking about. It generally happens when he doesn't get his own way (typical 3 year old :giggle:) but A LOT louder and higher pitched than normal.

So, how come your daughter can hear sound but not understand it? Is there another diagnosis that makes this happen? How do you know if your child fits this?

Tyler is 3 and no speech - absolutely no words (mind you his older brother who is hearing didn't speak until he was 3 too). Tyler understands commands and tries to communicate. I'm hearing small attempts at words "more, up, hi" but not very clear and not very consistent.
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Being able to hear sound but not understand running speech is more common than actually understanding speech without lipreading. If your child has been aided from a very young age, done therapy, and is still non-verbal at age 3, it is very likely that he is unable to comprehend speech using his hearing aids. That is just the way hearing loss works.
 
That audiogram and description helps... it's easy but confusing at the same time... if that makes sense ???

So, is there anyway that I can help Tyler to hear all sounds? If his hearing aids take him to 25-35 decibles... is there anyway I can help him to get those other sounds lower? Or will they just always be lost to him? Do cochlear implants make more sounds audible?

I am so confused... I just want the best for Tyler. I want him to speak... I don't care how he sounds... I just want him to be able to communicate.
 
faire_jour said:
Being able to hear sound but not understand running speech is more common than actually understanding speech without lipreading. If your child has been aided from a very young age, done therapy, and is still non-verbal at age 3, it is very likely that he is unable to comprehend speech using his hearing aids. That is just the way hearing loss works.
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But now... I'm heard from some other people with ha's that they didn't speak until much later.

How does your daughter communciate? Does she use ha's or ci's?
 
ryancher said:
But now... I'm heard from some other people with ha's that they didn't speak until much later.

How does your daughter communciate? Does she use ha's or ci's?
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I think I told you that. But I didn't realize you wouldn't know that I was taught, and I didn't just pick it up.
 
So, if by chance "he cannot comprehend speech using his hearing aids" what does that mean? Can we do more teaching to help him comprehend? FM systems, etc...

I won't give up on Tyler speaking... I know he will.
 
ryancher said:
What do you mean?
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That it took effort and intervention to teach me to talk. I can't think of a better way to tell you.

And I don't comprehend much speech although I wear hearing aids.

If you look at his aided audiogram and compare it to the chart Faire Jour put up, you may be able to see what he can hear of speech.
 
ryancher said:
But now... I'm heard from some other people with ha's that they didn't speak until much later.

How does your daughter communciate? Does she use ha's or ci's?
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My daughter was completely unable to access speech with HA's. She went to therapy for 5 years and learned probably...50 words. She was able to speak more than she could understand through hearing (which is very common). We had to accept that hearing aids were not giving her enough to become fluent using listening and speaking. Her language was ASL.


Later, she lost more hearing and became a cochlear implant candidate. She now uses a CI.
 
Bottesini said:
That it took effort and intervention to teach me to talk. I can't think of a better way to tell you.
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You mean speech therapy, lots of resources, and hard work???

And I don't comprehend much speech although I wear hearing aids.
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What do you mean you don't comprehend? You don't understand? Or you can't hear speech?

Tyler fits in between 25-35 db.
 
I remember when I was very young my parents always telling me to stop shouting and most of time I don't notice that I am. And my parents also told me I scream really loud but I don't hear it loud enough to me, sounds to me it not screaming loud, more like bit loud. When I talk if I wear aids (Used to wear aids but not anymore) I keep talking loudly so I can hear my voice instead of focusing on my speech.

When I was a teen, most of my family doesn't understand why my hearing aids don't help me to understand them at all (I am Profoundly Deaf), I try to explain it to them in simplest way. I used picture example. So imagine a picture that is small, say about 50 x 50 and when you try to resize the picture bigger it becomes more blurry, bigger the picture and worse blurry it is and you can't see what the picture is anymore. It kinda like that in sounds, more amplification more distorted the sounds get. That seems to help my family to understand bit better.

I wasn't able to speak well enough, clear enough until I was 13.
 
ryancher said:
You mean speech therapy, lots of resources, and hard work???



What do you mean you don't comprehend? You don't understand? Or you can't hear speech?

Tyler fits in between 25-35 db.
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Comprehend and understand mean the same thing.
 
ryancher said:
That audiogram and description helps... it's easy but confusing at the same time... if that makes sense ???

So, is there anyway that I can help Tyler to hear all sounds? If his hearing aids take him to 25-35 decibles... is there anyway I can help him to get those other sounds lower? Or will they just always be lost to him? Do cochlear implants make more sounds audible?

I am so confused... I just want the best for Tyler. I want him to speak... I don't care how he sounds... I just want him to be able to communicate.
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If the sounds are above where he hears with his aids, he will be unable to hear them.

Regardless of hearing, he can communicate through ASL. It doesn't matter what he hears, he will be fine.

If he was a CI candidate, it is possible that he could be able to hear as soft as 15-25 db. But I don't know if he is a candidate. If that is something you would be interested in, you should speak to your audiologist VERY soon, the earlier a child is implanted, the better they do.
 
ryancher said:
So, if by chance "he cannot comprehend speech using his hearing aids" what does that mean? Can we do more teaching to help him comprehend? FM systems, etc...

I won't give up on Tyler speaking... I know he will.
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If he can not understand speech through listening he would need to learn to lipread. (Only about 30% of speech is visible on the mouth) He would need lots of therapy as he would have to be taught each word, he wouldn't just "pick them up" through hearing them.
 
ryancher said:
You mean speech therapy, lots of resources, and hard work???



What do you mean you don't comprehend? You don't understand? Or you can't hear speech?

Tyler fits in between 25-35 db.
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I think that you should put a call into your audiologist. Has your son had speech discrimination testing? They would show him 6 pictures (at first they are very different hot dog vs airplane) and then say the word at increasingly soft levels. The quietest he can tell the difference between the words is his speech recognition threshold or SRT. Also, they would ask him to point to one of 12 pictures and see how many he got correct and you would know how well he is understanding very different speech (which is the very first step). This test gets progressively harder, until the words are very similar (like gun vs gum)
 
Ryancher,
Lipreading is far easier than thought to be. Your son would have the ability to pick it up. Ask any deaf person. It is harder for some than others, of course. I lipread at an astounding level and I wasn't taught it.
 
No, he is not a candidate for a ci... we checked into that when he was 18 months old. They said the candidacy for a ci started at 90db. Tyler is between 65-75db unaided. So, it's just hearing aids for him.

No, they have never done descrimination testing. I will look into that.

But I know in my heart Tyler will learn to speak... he is determined enough and we put a lot of effort into it with him. I'm sure he will lipread and sign as well... but I know he will speak eventually.
 
AlleyCat said:
Ryancher,
Lipreading is far easier than thought to be. Your son would have the ability to pick it up. Ask any deaf person. It is harder for some than others, of course. I lipread at an astounding level and I wasn't taught it.
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Do you recommend using lipreading to teach language or as the primary means of communicating with the world?
 
Hey I wonder if the Naida's and the FM system will help him comprehend speech more/better?
 
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