The "now I hear you-now I don't" game: ???

messymama

messymama

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I don't know if that's the right place to ask, but I read here and there about some of you remember doing this "game", or knowing other deaf kids doing it.
What's the meaning of it, exactly? I understand it has something to do with parents/professionals expectations, like pretending you hear/don't hear some sounds when they are trying to test your hearing... Right?

My son can seem to hear everything or nothing, depending on his mood. His hearing loss seem not to be fluctuant though, so we simply gave up and assumed his first cooperative test was right. We try not to do "home tests" and we focus on other things, since he can really really drive you NUTS on hearing. I know he indeed has some access to sound (or lipreading, even if he doesn't look at people in the face very often, which is another problem) since his understanding of what's going on is way too good in respect of our desperately poor SL:roll: but no way (or need, really) to quantify it.

Do you remember doing this as kids? Why did you do it? How did all of you who are prelingually deaf deal with hearing tests and other's expectations?

Just trying to see how it feels to be in my son's shoes :hmm:
 
It is possible that some days he is able to hear and other days he is unable to hear. I've been accused of faking my deafness cause I do have days that I "hear" better than others and I can't help that.

Give it time and I'm sure others will chime in and give you more detailed information.
 
Are you talking about having his hearing tested by an audiologist or something?
 
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Sometimes, I can hear and sometimes I can't. Listening takes a lot of effort. A person cannot keep up that kind of effort all of the time. It's exhausting. Sometimes, I just take my hearing aids out and give myself a break.

You don't understand what it's like to have hearing loss. Your child is not failing to hear to annoy you. Sure, it's inconvenient. If you take this inconvenience personally, it's going to hurt your child. You need to send the message that he's worth the extra effort.
 
I could see sometime having "selective" hearing, depending on the mood or state you're in, the person you're talking to, the familiarity or relevancy of the topic, the acoustics of the room or environment, etc.

However, generally speaking it shouldn't affect the tests too much, especially if they're done in a simple "raise your hand when you hear the beeps" format. Perhaps, maybe he just feels that he's being tested a little too often and is rebelling a bit? Just being tested about once a year should be sufficient. That is unless you want to check up on his hearing aid or something.
 
messymama said:
I don't know if that's the right place to ask, but I read here and there about some of you remember doing this "game", or knowing other deaf kids doing it.
What's the meaning of it, exactly? I understand it has something to do with parents/professionals expectations, like pretending you hear/don't hear some sounds when they are trying to test your hearing... Right?

My son can seem to hear everything or nothing, depending on his mood. His hearing loss seem not to be fluctuant though, so we simply gave up and assumed his first cooperative test was right. We try not to do "home tests" and we focus on other things, since he can really really drive you NUTS on hearing. I know he indeed has some access to sound (or lipreading, even if he doesn't look at people in the face very often, which is another problem) since his understanding of what's going on is way too good in respect of our desperately poor SL:roll: but no way (or need, really) to quantify it.

Do you remember doing this as kids? Why did you do it? How did all of you who are prelingually deaf deal with hearing tests and other's expectations?

Just trying to see how it feels to be in my son's shoes :hmm:
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First: I am not sure - If you are talking about the hearing test or not. If so, proceed.

When I take these tests - even to this day I still have problems. Well, last time I took a test was for admissions at an university about four years ago. I get tinnitus while having the test taken. Think about it like this, they raise, raise, and raise the sound to the point I can hear it. At this point this is at 100+ db. Just a party in my ears and its for a second or two. It causes ringing instantly. The ringing is constant and overpowers a lot of the beeping (no matter how loud it is). It requires skill to figure out what's real sound or the ringing.

If you doubt me, many hearing aid users/CI users testify if they aren't wearing their equipment they have ringing on this forum.
 
posts from hell said:
First: I am not sure - If you are talking about the hearing test or not. If so, proceed.

When I take these tests - even to this day I still have problems. Well, last time I took a test was for admissions at an university about four years ago. I get tinnitus while having the test taken. Think about it like this, they raise, raise, and raise the sound to the point I can hear it. At this point this is at 100+ db. Just a party in my ears and its for a second or two. It causes ringing instantly. The ringing is constant and overpowers a lot of the beeping (no matter how loud it is). It requires skill to figure out what's real sound or the ringing.

If you doubt me, many hearing aid users/CI users testify if they aren't wearing their equipment they have ringing on this forum.
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I, too, have tinnitus and wonder how much it affects my hearnig tests. It takes a lot of concentration to listen for the beeps.
 
Even with my HAs, I can hear the tinnitus. The HAs do help mask the sound but they doesn't eliminate it entirely.

We also don't know how old this child is. It's hard to test a younger child sometimes.
 
It causes ringing instantly. The ringing is constant and overpowers a lot of the beeping (no matter how loud it is). It requires skill to figure out what's real sound or the ringing.
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Same thing happens to me, too. It's difficult to explain to a hearing person how one can have these phantom noises that sound as loud as real noises.

But it sounds more like you have this "sometimes I can hear you, sometimes I can't" thing going on in daily life? That could happen because of the presence or absense of background noise (even something that you yourself might tune out, like a plane going overhead or traffic noise or something). Some household noises bother me more than others: the dishwasher going isn't a problem, but the low roar of the furnace when it kicks in might interfere with a conversation.

At age 2, he is learning a lot about the world and his concentration might be divided. If he is concentrating on something else other than you, he might be tuning you out just because something else is more interesting at the moment.

Good luck with it; it's going to be a learning process for your whole family.
 
No idea how deaf your son is.

Maybe when he is hearing you is when he focusing on listening and when he is not hearing you in very similiar or same enivroment cos he not focusing on listening.
 
Thanks for all of your replies, and sorry if some of what I said was maybe unrespectful in some way... As Baech Girl said, we all are learning, it's a nwe path for all of our family.

He actually gives different reponses to sound in any situation, daily life AND tests. he's only 2 years old so I'm not asking him to be so precise, but I can tell you for SURE he does it on purpose sometimes, since he can stay in control and not react even if you touch him on the shoulder or give him visual stimuli. He just holds on and wait for you to give up. I guess that's just his personality... I was just wondering if this is somehow common or if someone else remembers of doing it. I think he simply HATE to be tested/forced to communicate in any way. I want to say I don't think this is "bad" inthe sense he acts as a "bad boy", I'm not guilting him for doing this "game"... Only trying to understand if this reaction is due to some of our way of acting that makes him uncomfortable. He can communicate well when he wants, and he's starting to use his voice and some sign too, so I'm quite relaxed about him now.

I just can't find anyone near me to give me a clue about this, since almost all adult deafs here in Italy were grown up oral only, and almost all children with profound deafness have CI... No one that I know that's doing what we are doing with our son. Sometimes I feel a little lost, that's it!:roll:

Edit: @speedyhawk: how deaf he is, is hard to tell!
Hospital says: 90db at 250 hz, 100 db at 500, then nothing. Aided or unaided.
Our HA center says: 90-95 db across all frequencies, from 250 to 4000 hz, unaided. 30-40 db across all frequencies when aided.
And we are left to believe what we want...
Hospital said we sholud implant him immediately, but we don't want to, so we choose to believe otherwise... Also because he actually reacts to very tiny sounds in daily life. Sometimes. I don't think his is a fluctuating loss, but he actually can "choose" to focus on sound or not, and this can actually be the key to understand his behaviour. He also is having a hard time trying to relate sounds to reality... So he can stop and listen sometimes, but doesn't have the automatic instinct to turn around and look for the source.

I sometimes think his HAs are like a mp3 player to him... He likes to listen to it but keeps on doing what he's doing. LOL. I love him so much!
 
So he is around severe to profound. Like I said before he may not understood you cos he not focusing on listening. It very hard to learn to listen if he is able to understand speech esp starting severe level cos he may need really to focus.
 
He sounds like a spirited boy. I have a couple of those. All 2 YOs can be challenging. Don't worry, it'll get easier. Good luck on a better test in the future!
 
I love your last sentence, that you love him so much!! That goes a long way in coping with anything!!

Is there any possibility that he might be a bit autistic? Usually 2 year olds do want to communicate, somehow, and want to look at their parents or playmates. Has an expert in child development evaluated him for his behavior? It can be tricky to sort out what's what, I'm sure.
 
Beach girl said:
Is there any possibility that he might be a bit autistic? Usually 2 year olds do want to communicate, somehow, and want to look at their parents or playmates. Has an expert in child development evaluated him for his behavior? It can be tricky to sort out what's what, I'm sure.
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Yes, they told us there can be some relational problem, but he's way too young to tell now... And doesn't have typical autistic traits so if anything's there, it's most likely something we can cope with. I noticed it's important not to force or try to manipulate him: he closes up all communications immediately if he feels pressure. While he can follow you anywhere if you are going to play with him and accept him like he is. Very wise I think:hmm:

He IS able to communicate and knows some signing too, but uses them only when he feels you are not trying to "make him do it", for example he's most likely to use sign with his uncle or people he doesn't know than with us; and he uses his voice a lot with us parents, while he somewhat seems to "hide" this ability with his speech therapist! He's a challenge in any way.

I hope sign will help him, since I think he WANTS to communicate, but still have to learn how to organize his communication skills (very normal at 2yo I guess). Sign should be easier for him, even if he's visibilly attracted by words (he lipreads since he was very little - that's how we discovered his deafness: he speaks many words using his lips only, voice-off).
 
When I was a kid, I was a bit slow. I didn't understand why I had to wear hearing aids and what they were to do. If I did, then maybe I would have gotten more benefit from them. I hope your son understand why he has to wear hearing aids.
 
He sounds like my eldest son. You're going to have to let him lead. Kids with really strong personalities are hard when they are toddlers. Remind yourself that his strong personality will serve him well in later life.
 
posts from hell said:
First: I am not sure - If you are talking about the hearing test or not. If so, proceed.

When I take these tests - even to this day I still have problems. Well, last time I took a test was for admissions at an university about four years ago. I get tinnitus while having the test taken. Think about it like this, they raise, raise, and raise the sound to the point I can hear it. At this point this is at 100+ db. Just a party in my ears and its for a second or two. It causes ringing instantly. The ringing is constant and overpowers a lot of the beeping (no matter how loud it is). It requires skill to figure out what's real sound or the ringing.

If you doubt me, many hearing aid users/CI users testify if they aren't wearing their equipment they have ringing on this forum.
Click to expand...
Yeah. I hate audiogram for much the same reason that you do. It often triggers ringing in my ears and makes it hard to tell the difference between the beeping and the beep especially if both sounds are high pitched.
 
sallylou said:
He sounds like my eldest son. You're going to have to let him lead. Kids with really strong personalities are hard when they are toddlers. Remind yourself that his strong personality will serve him well in later life.
Click to expand...

You know, I think you're right!
The problem is... My eldest daughter is that kind of kid, too.:hmm:

So I have 2 leaders in my house... We simply NEED to discuss and compromise all the time :laugh2:
Me and my husband and always soooo tires, but I hope it helps in the future...
 
I often wonder if he has tinnitus, too. But it's too soon to know, anyway.

I can tell you even I, when doing those tests, have doubts if I'm hearing sounds or not (especially high pitch sounds). I'm sure I imagine them sometimes, because I simply know it's there!:laugh2:
And I miss only 40db in one ear, and only on low-middle sounds. So I suppose it's better if we observe him in daily life.

In the meanwhile, I think I'll investigate in my own family since me and my father may have (or had while young) a bit of Asperger's traits... Veeery mild, but if that's the case, that would maybe explain something :roll: We never bother to investigate this since we both are fine like this, but now it could be useful to know. And it can be done without stressing on the child.
 
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