Hello!!
I'm new to this Board , my name is Monika and my girl Nicole is 10yo( autism mild/moderate ) .My Niki always had a touble with understanding human voice and since birth I knew that was "something wrong" with her .She did hear but......could not locate the sound .Also she did not understand more difficult verbs or commands .
It took me years , number of very specyfic tests and still no unswer to her problem .We tried Tomatis ( with some results) but not for long.
Only just resently i realized that she does not hear herself ,only air hearing from around.I went to see special audiologist and................we tried bone conducted hearing-aid.It was just primitive ( head band) and mono- not stereo type .Anyhow , I write this as it took me 10 years to figerout what is going on with my child .
Today we are waiting for a proper one ( it is in glasses ) and we will see the miricle that Stella ( Let me hear your voice ) had discribed in her book!!
My girl reacted very good to this aid.She was interested in radio , started to dance , was very verbal( before she could talk only on her needs) .
I PRAY that this will help her and maybe some other children .
Costs are big ( about 4000$) but I will pay ...........
Please ,write to me if anyone had the same story or similar and child is wearing this hearing-aid.
Best regards,
Monika
My PDD-NOS son has moderate bilateral sensorineuro hearing loss and has worn traditional hearing aids since age 3. If we hadn't discovered his hearing loss at this young age, he would have grown up non-verbal. He is verbal, although his language is imperfect. He has social conversations and understands virtually all that is said. The fact that he can speak at all is due to all the effort we've put in to his hearing issues over the years. He has his hearing aids, he used an auditory trainer in school until HS, he gets the services of a Teacher of the Hearing Impaired daily, so he reads lips and can actually do without his aids now. He hears, but poorly, so reading lips is important and has had the positive side of giving him good eye contact habits. I urge ALL people with young children on the spectrum to get their kids' hearing checked out, preferably by getting them a brain stem test (a hearing EEG). That way, any hearing loss can be detected 100% and hearing interventions can be put in at a very young age. I suspect that plenty nonverbal kids on the spectrum are that way due to undetected hearing loss. Certainly, there are also plenty of ASD kids who are nonverbal and hear just fine. But don't depend on observation. People are amazing in their ability to adapt to their hearing issues and appear to hear well. Hearing a bit doesn't do it. Kids have to hear WELL to become verbal. Good luck.
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