Speech and Hearing Update

Melanie continues I take Whitney to speech therapy every other week. Her progress is slow but we keep trying.

Last week the therapist focused a bit on listening comprehension and Whit did very well. The therapist asked, "Can you point to the glass that is empty?" Whitney got it right first time. She did just as well with full and with various colors and shapes too. She's a pretty sharp little listener really. And this was all without the help of her hearing aids. Which makes me very happy. I'm still convinced that she needs her aids but it's great she can function so well without them.

Speaking of hearing aids, I mentioned how Whitney chewed up her aid on the school bus the last week before summer vacation.   In the ten minute ride home from school she pulled the aid apart into about three different pieces and chewed on the actual aid casing.  So she's been getting along with one or completely without on occasion. But we arranged with the audiologist to have the worst of the damage repaired. Melanie and Whitney went to have it looked at yesterday. The best news is that the repair should be covered by our insurance and we should have the aid back in a week or two. So hopefully the first of what will likely be a lifetime of hearing aid repairs will go smoothly.

Once we get the damaged hearing aid back, we're going to work slowly back up to having Whitney tolerate them all day.  She's been pretty resistant lately and we're not sure why.  The audiologist thought she saw some evidence of fluid in one ear so we're using antibiotic drops to clear that up.  We'll also see if we can get a better hearing test so we can adjust her aids to the right level of correction.  Whitney might be getting blasted out on some frequencies right now and that would motivate her to take her hearing aids out too.