Today, we went to the city as always, but this time for Ella’s audiology appointment. She hasn’t had one since she was almost six months old. At that time, everything looked normal.
I haven’t had any concerns about her hearing. She generally will respond when her name is called, or dance when music is playing. She did however stop making her “m” sound, which one SLP had said could be the result of hearing loss. I didn’t think much of it until her follow up appointment today.
The Down Syndrome Clinic has been without an audiologist for almost as long as we have been going but a few weeks ago they were finally able to introduce their new hire. I thought it would be months before we were able to get in, so you can imagine how thrilled I was when they called last week and said that they had an opening on Monday.
I noticed during the appointment that Ella was not always responding to the sounds coming out of the speakers unless they were full volume. My untrained eye however was unsure as to whether it was due to the fact that she couldn’t hear it or that she was just too distracted by the toys. She does live with a rowdy older brother in a household where there is usually music playing.
Needless to say, the audiologist concluded that there is some fluid sitting behind her ear drums. This could be due to a cold which seems to be manifesting itself and will fix itself in time but because of our time crunch (moving to a different country) she is going to follow up in May and make a referral to the ENT (Ear, nose and throat) specialist.
I am not too worried about it: lots of children need tubes, she doesn’t suffer from chronic ear infections and while speech is coming slow it does seem to be coming…I am just a little annoyed that after a year of no issues, two have come up right when we are preparing for transition. C’est la vie!
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