Part of my recent blogging poopy-headedness has been dealing with a minor medical drama with my youngest kid. Over the past 3 or 4 months, we’d noticed that her speech was lagging behind her peers. At her age, lots of kids start to self-correct any unusual speech patterns (lisps, etc), but she just wasn’t doing it. She’d always been a bit delayed verbally compared to her older sister, but that just meant she was in the middle of the bell curve rather than a freak of nature, so we’d never been too concerned. However, in the midst of starting to look into speech therapy, I had an incident where it became completely clear that she just couldn’t hear me. Previously, we’d interpreted similar episodes as her just being very absorbed in what she was doing — if you’ve ever dealt with a three-year old, you know that they’re excellent at ignoring you when they choose. This incident was different, though, and pointed strongly at her being hearing impaired. A follow-up at the doctor’s confirmed our suspicion, when she could only hear the very loudest tone at any frequency. A bit after Christmas we got in to see the audiologists, who found that she had about 40 decibels of hearing loss. For comparison, dense foam earplugs are rated at a bit less than 30 decibels.
The uncertainty before we got into the audiologists was kindof awful (though we of course were very chin up about it). We didn’t know if her hearing loss was degenerative, if it was correctable, and if, to what level. Mostly, however, I just felt terrible for her, because she’d been struggling for years just to understand anything that was going on around her. At the same time, I was tremendously proud of how well she coped, because damn, she was good at figuring out what you meant from not a whole lot of aural cues. Most people were shocked to find out that she was hearing impaired, because she can hold a conversation with you. However, once you know, you notice that during every few conversational back-and-forths, her ability to extrapolate your meaning would break down, and she’d get screwed up. So, all this time she’s been devoting a huge fraction of her tiny little CPU to a highly-advanced voice-recognition system.
In spite of the fact that she’s been good at passing, there are a number of traits that made a lot of sense once we knew about the hearing loss. For example, she has always been very self-contained and independent, but I suspect that’s largely because she only can process what she’s directly paying attention to. She never overhears conversations or background sounds, and so is frequently oblivious of what’s going on (again, it’s easy to miss this being a medical symptom, rather than a bad case of being three). She has great difficulty finding you in the house, since she doesn’t hear footsteps, doors closing, or water running.
The good news is that I now have no need to take advantage of my new knowledge of where to learn ASL in the Seattle area. The audiologists found that the problem was that her middle ear was filled up with the ear’s equivalent of snot, which is easily correctable with tubes. She had the surgery today, and it is like she’s a different kid. The change was dramatic, and essentially immediate. Suddenly, she’s chatty. She no longer pauses before answering you — I’d never noticed that she’d had this processing latency until it went away. She heard my husband from across the room. She swiveled instantly at hearing the ding of the elevator down the hallway. She is about a factor of ten times more engaged with everything around her, and it is so completely gratifying to witness.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Wow, what an amazing story, and happy ending to boot, congratulations!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Glad to hear that everything turned out ok at the end. Congratulations!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Very good that she’s doing fine now.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:08 am
That ended well. Someone I know went through this exact same problem, and I’m really glad to hear yours came out the same way.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Thanks for the well wishes. It really is like unwrapping a present, and finding this amazingly engaging kid underneath.
Not to imply that we wouldn’t have been fine if she’d lost all her hearing as well. The adaptation would have been tougher though, until we got the knack of deaf culture. This outcome is definitely the easiest for all of us. I’m also amazed at how fast we were able to go from suspicion, to diagnosis, to solution. I’m loving my HMO these days.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Congrats Julianne!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:49 am
wow… what a crazy welcome home after what must have been a long week in austin! i’m happily relieved to hear of your family’s good news and your helpful HMO!
January 15th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Very happy for you. I had tubes in both ears as a kid but never suffered the profound hearing loss your daughter suffered.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:57 am
You know what is the most amazing thing about this story? The three-year-old human. Baby humans are amazing animals and we totally take them for granted, just because they seem to be everywhere.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Yay Julianne’s daughter!
It must be a whole new world for her. I bet if you exposed her to some really good music right now, she’d be enthralled!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Thank you for sharing. There’s a good chance your account will help other parents catch on to a similar situation in their child.
Kids can be amazingly resilient. I hope your daughter catches up with her peers quickly!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Good for you and her! I’m a parent, so I can imagine what this must be like.
I went through the same experience in first grade. I remember my mom crying and everyone was concerned, and I couldn’t figure out why my granddad wanted me to try out his new hearing aid. (it didn’t help me). I was doing poorly in school because I couldn’t hear the teacher, and ended up in trouble several times for not getting back to class after recess (what bell!?!?!)
Turns out I had fluid in my ears. A couple of tubes later, I could hear just fine.
On the other hand, I dated a girl who was truly hearing impaired, a bit more than your daughter. The hearing aids she wore were non-intrusive, and you would never know she had trouble hearing if she didn’t tell you or paid really close attention to her ears.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Congrats on getting it figured out and thanks for sharing your story.
I, too, had ear tubes when I was little. I had to have a few years of speech therapy because my pre-tubes difficulties in hearing meant that I didn’t hear, and thus didn’t say, some sounds correctly. But it all worked out just fine for me, and I certainly wish all the same success for your daughter.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I hope everything works out for her! I got tubes put in and out a few times as a kid, I was a bit hearing impaired but the bigger issue for me was regular inner ear infections… the tubes made it less likely that one of those would lead to a ruptured eardrum.
I have no lasting ill effects, other than the somewhat annoying fact that there is still a hole in my right eardrum where one of the tube-holes didn’t heal completely. I have to wear an earplug underwater to avoid a hell of an earache, and scuba diving is probably out of the question. Blah.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I had similar issues as a little kid (though I was a little older, needed surgery, and didn’t get all my hearing back), and I remember it. I didn’t notice a difference in my hearing, just that people didn’t expect ridiculous things from me anymore, or tell me nearly as often to pay attention.
I remember teachers that were livid that I hadn’t followed directions, or was still engrossed in something at my desk while the rest of the class had left. I never imagined I had a hearing problem – I was just bewildered.
Eh, kids just adapt, and don’t yet know what’s normal.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:40 am
It’s great that you caught on early, and were able to quickly solve the problem. I also had this problem as a kid; though I can’t remember when exactly my parents caught on, it’d been going on for years before they figured out why their normally agreeable child stubbornly refused to answer them when in another room.
One thing I wished I’d done was to get my hearing tested more regularly as a teenager and young adult, and not stopped going to the ENT doctor and audiologist after my second set of tubes was out. As a result of the many childhood ear infections before I had tubes, there was quite a bit of nerve damage, so I’ve got an auditory processing disorder that wasn’t diagnosed until I was 32 — and sure would’ve made work and university easier if I’d known I had it. Free advice from strangers is worth everything you paid for it, of course — but I thought I’d pass it on, all the same.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:50 am
What a terrific story! You should be playing lots of music around the house, just to see if she reacts differently then she did before…I’d suggest some Coltrane, though she may prefer “The Wiggles”.
I love happy news!
January 15th, 2008 at 11:12 am
That’s great news! My brother had the same issue; he’s now a professional musician and a conductor- he credits the sudden explosion of sound in his life at the relatively older age for his lifelong interest and ability. Congrats!
January 15th, 2008 at 11:46 am
CONGRATULATIONS! Wow.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Y’know, I have heard stories like this a lot, but in a different context.
My Number One Son, Nathan, had similar hearing/communication problems, as well as chronic ear effusions (ear snot, in more direct language). Unfortunately, in his case, the ear tubes cleared out his middle ears, and stopped the recurrent ear infections, but his language did not get better.
Some time later–and after much emotional turmoil–we found out that Nathan is autistic. And it turns out that lots and lots of families with an autistic member started out on the hearing loss-ear tubes path.
I’m glad your daughter’s hearing improved–and I’m thrilled by all the similar stories shared above. But, as your readers think about this story and hear similar stories in the future, please remember be suspicious of other causes of communication difficulties. Autism is treatable with intensive therapy, and the earlier it starts, the better. If the ear tubes do not produce the expected results, stop and re-think the differential diagnosis.
[BTW, Nathan is 13 now and doing fine. But that's another story.]
January 15th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Both my sons got ear tubes when they were ~14-16 months old, and it’s made a huge impact for them. Aside from not being sick anymore, speech development for both of them greatly accelerated once their tubes were in. I’m glad you all figured it out and it was an easy fix.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
What a terrific and happy ending to the story. I’m glad such a potentially troubling condition had a relatively easy fix. Enjoy your little one!
January 15th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
What a wonderful end! Good luck to you and your family.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Wonderful.
I had one of my ears fill up with wax when I was about 25. I didn’t realize for a long time, then I noticed that I couldn’t hear when my good ear was down on the pillow in bed. This was nothing at all of course compared to your daughter, except that I still remember the 4 hours after I had the wax taken out as the most amazing time. Until my head figured out that it had to change its processing rules for noise from the previously blocked ear, sounds were much more intense than they ever had been or have been since. It wasn’t like tinnitus; there was a feeling of being much more intimately in contact with the world. A real high. It was also amazing how fast my head adjusted. I hope your daughter has a great first month. Three’s kind of young, but I guess she’ll remember this.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Great news! I am glad she did not need speech therapy. I am also glad you went for help, because a lot of doctors will blow off speech delays as no big deal when they can be symptoms of hearing loss, autism, developmental delays, and other issues. If you have your child examined and there is nothing wrong, it’s a relief. However, if you catch something at the right time, you can save years of playing catchup with your child’s life.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Well, she may still wind up with speech therapy to catch up, but at least she stands a chance of correcting it on her own now.
During this whole episode, I talked with my freshman roomate from MIT, who’s deaf in one ear. Apparently she was rejected from multiple private kindergardens because they assumed she was retarded. It’s amazing what hearing loss can masquerade as, and, as you and others pointed out, what speech issues can be a sign of.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Congrats Julianne and your daughter! Now, I think my 3 year old daughter’s hearing is perfectly fine — she just chooses to ignore me sometimes. I need to figure out how to cure that too…
January 15th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
[...] extraordinary CPU with amazing plasticity There is a very moving story at Cosmic Variance by Julianne about her daughter’s temporary loss of hearing: Mostly, however, I just felt terrible for [...]
January 16th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Julianne,
As you can see from many of the comments here, this is really not uncommon. It is sad that even educated parents don’t know this and can go through a lot of fear and worry over what usually turns out to be not very serious. You don’t say but I hope the doctor tried to reassure you about this. Even then, I can’t blame you for continuing to fear the worst. Glad it turned out well in the end, and I’m sure she’ll catch up quickly.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Disclaier: I am not an SLP but I hang out with them.
Since she is only three, speech therapy may not be necessary, but you should definitely go for an evaluation and if necessary some followup speech therapy. It is amazing what a difference a few months of therapy can make in a child who needs it.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Great News, very happy to read about the happy ending. Reminds me to go see my GP and get
my ears cleaned out.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Disclaimer: I’m an otolaryngologist, but I don’t play one on TV.
Ear tubes are a very common procedure; last I heard about 2 million are placed each year. Your story is very typical; if fluid was present beforehand, parents often report dramatic improvements in hearing and speech, and behavior too, after placement. However, studies show that kids who don’t get tubes during the crucial years for speech development usually catch up with those who do receive them. There is some debate about whether we are doing them too often; the indications now for the operation are that there must be a 30 dB loss on both sides for 3 months. I can tell you that if the average adult had that much hearing loss and you told him it would disappear with tube placement, he or she wouldn’t want to wait 3 hours, let alone three months.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I’m so glad that someone gave me a link to this post. My son was born with a cleft palate so we were at the audiologist within the first couple of weeks of his life. When he finally had his surgery, and the tubes inserted, at 9 months the changes were amazing and so similar to yours. I so glad that you found out what was going on and that the problem was so easily fixed!
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Congratulations!!
Mostly though; Thank you for making my day better. It’s really very refreshing to read something with such a positive message/outcome.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
[...] into my household’s Year of Sensory Input Issues, my husband is dealing with a detached retina. It’s been a sometimes frightening experience [...]