Can you hear what I hear?

Kate recently had an appointment with an Audiologist because she failed her hearing screening in both ears at her 2-year well check. The appointment went fairly well considering it was an hour at the appointment. The first part of the assessment consisted of Kate sitting in a sound booth (with me in there of course) and holding a block up to her ear; when she heard a sound she needed to throw the block in a bin. Kate had to watch me do it a few times. It was hard for me to distinguish if she was actually throwing in the blocks because she heard a sound or if she was randomly throwing them in. The audiologist seems to think she understood the task. The second part to that was for Kate to turn to sounds (there were speakers in the corner of the sound booth) such as a cow, dog, yawn, bees, etc. The sounds began very loud and then got softer. At this point she had enough and wanted out of the sound booth. I don't blame her really, she was a good sport through it all though. The next part of the test was for Kate to point to pictures as the audiologist named items. The items were dog, spoon and ball. I know she had enough of the testing when she did not point to ball; she definitely knows that word. Finally, the last part was to stick this little thing in her ear which is attached to a scanner. Before the appointment I played and poked at her ears and told her the doctor was going to do this; this may have helped a bit. What also helped was that the audiologist put the thing in my ears first and of course Kate wanted to do what I was doing!

So the results...Kate has fluid in her ears which can be from past colds, unknown ear infections (as I only know of one) or allergies which the audiologist think she has. She said to imagine holding your hands over your ears and that is what she hears. She can't hear low frequencies and is missing certain vowel sounds so that is why she says certain words the way she does; and why her expressive language is slightly delayed. I got a lot of information that day. Kate has to go back to the pediatrician and then we go from there. She has another appointment with the audiologist in 2 weeks to see if the fluid is dissipating.


Luckily for me, my friend Kendra who is a speech pathologist for our school district is staying with us for a month. She and her husband just moved to Kentucky (where she is from) and she is finishing her contract. I am not kidding, in one week Kate has made so much progress. Kendra is teaching her how to put two to three words together. We are doing flashcards. Having her name objects. Not that Chris and I did not do this before, but I think a new person who is trained to work with kids in this manner is having better luck with tough Miss Kate. She is AMAZING! One thing we are going to do is take pictures of items, laminate them and put them in this little binder with velcro. The objective is to put what she wants together in order and then to say what she wants. Anyhow, Kendra is giving me tons of ideas and I am loving her help! Below is a picture of Kendra watching Kate put on her bunny ears. Thanks for the help Kendra! We will miss you!