Return to School - Return to Wearing Hearing Aids
Good Afternoon,
I have been a member of NDCS for 2 years after our Son was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss in his left ear, unilateral hearing loss, single sided deafness.
Our Son was provided with a wired Cros hearing aid in July 2019 and then funding was subsequently approved for a wireless Cros aid and he currently wears the Phonak Sky V70 M and Cros II, since August 2020.
My concern is that, he only wears it at school, where he finds the school environment noisy (30 children in a class) and to focus on the teacher. He wears it confidently and is very responsible at putting it on.
I am concerned about the return to school in a week and how the wearing of his hearing aid again will impact him after not wearing it at all during the third lockdown (it is just him and I at home during the day) as he does not feel the need.
He has and does suffer from concentration fatigue and we are expecting to see this again with the return to school, extreme tiredness and lots of tears.
What can I do to be prepared. Is there anything that will help further whilst in school. I have seen the Roger Pens and mics that the teacher can wear but was previously told if he needed one he would be supplied with one.
It is also a long time since any check up has been done or his aids checked by the TOD, would you reccomend contacting the audiologist at the hospital.
I welcome peoples opinions and anyone else who feels or has the same concerns.
Thank you
Hello, I'm not familiar with the equipment you mention. My son has bilateral moderate hearing loss and wears hearing aids with ear moulds and uses a Roger Touchscreen in class. Does the Cros II have the microphone in the unit your son wears? The benefit of the Roger systems is that the microphone can be close to the speaker. My son didn't get aided until he was 11 (now 16) and despite his TOD recommending that he wears his aids every day he too perfers to only wear them when he has to. He does seem to be better at adapting to wearing them now. Perhaps your son could start wearing his aids for part of the day and increase that in the days before he goes back to school.
If you feel your son would benefit from a different set up for hearing his teacher I'd recommend contacting his TOD to disucss this. Even if it's just to review his reasonable adjustments and ask the TOD to check with your son's school that those are being met. As to audiology check up we were told we should get our sons hearing checked regularly, twice a year, but as he has always been under adult audiology and there is no automatic call for review, I have to book it myself.
A roger touch screen and mike would certainly help and it's not something that would come reccomended but something you would probably have to fight for. And if the fight goes nowhere and TOD still doesn't supply it than apply for your own through Birkdale Trust - it's a charity fund to helt with equipment for educatingthe hearing impaired.
The point of the roger is that the teachers voice is directly input to the hearingaid which lessens concentration fatigue immensly - not so much need for lipreading and helps espeically when there is a noisy classroom.
It's a real life saver - my story has been written up in one of the previous NDCS famialies newsletter...
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