making sense of Logan's hearing loss

Last fall, God blessed us with a new friend, a mom whose daughters spent Wednesday afternoons and Thursdays with us. At the time, I didn't now just how much of a blessing Kristen would be, but she's been awesome. Yesterday, she helped SO MUCH! I didn't know we needed an audiologist in our lives, but God sure did! We're grateful He brought Kristen to us.

Monday I was at the doctor's office, and I asked for a copy of Logan's audiology report from our craniofacial visit. I had the opportunity to re-read it and see what I could understand. After a bit, I sat down and copied what the hospital audiologist had written and sent it to Kristen. She helped me make sense of it, and sent me a great chart that helps us see clearly why Logan doesn't always respond to us, and a list of helpful ideas to make things easier for all of us.

She sent us an audiogram with a "speech banana" in it. It was helpful to take Logan's report and graph the numbers onto it. When we did it, we could see that he doesn't hear the following sounds well out of either ear:

z, v, j, m, d, b, n, ng, l, i, o

He doesn't hear these sounds out of his left ear, but some from his right:

a, p, r

These are the sounds he hears most clearly:

h, s, ch, sh, k, f, th

That doesn't leave much.... No wonder his English isn't progressing as we'd hoped. No wonder he doesn't always respond to us. No wonder he responds less if I have my back to him when I talk. No wonder he sometimes does strange things when I ask him a question. He's not hearing us as well as we'd like! Or, I'm sure, as well as HE'D like!!

We're hopeful that ear tubes (to reduce/eliminate fluid in his middle ear) will be done this fall and will help, especially in the sounds he doesn't hear well out of either ear. They might give him some of those sounds back. I'm praying they do, because I suspect that when Logan can HEAR we'll see a language explosion!