hardofhearingchildren.com by PAM Candlish MLS
"What did you say?" "Eh?" "WHAT did you say?" "MM?" "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" oh "PARDON ME!"

My Thoughts as we Buy Reid's Sixth Hearing Aid.

Reid's hearing aid ceased to work suddenly in November. As the hearing aid is 4 years old, and not covered by a warranty, repair was not attempted. 

Research and Evaluation 

He had seen the audiologist in October, and selected a Phonak Claro 211 daz fm. Reid looked at all the hearing aids from all the companies at two conferences we attended last year, VOICE for Hearing Impaired Children in Kitchener, and A.G.Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Philadelphia.

I have read various articles about how much hearing aid is really necessary, and talked to several experts in the field. 

It is a principal of the auditory/verbal method that the child has the best hearing aids in their ears. 

Several professionals have used the analogy of the Rolls to the Chevette, and said it was not necessary for the child to have a Rolls if it was difficult to fund the hearing aid. 

Frankly, parents of children with special needs are over-rated as constant sources of money for the medical technology field. We are motivated to do our best for the child as much as we can, and buying a terrific hearing aid is one way of facing the deafness which cripples our child invisibly. To not buy a hearing aid causes guilt to the parent. Great motivator for the hearing aid companies to profit on.

The technology comes from the hearing aid companies who are in the business of making money. If they were expected to work for the joys of altruism, the hearing aids would probably not be as advanced. Also the baby boomers who had loud walkman's in their ears will have mild and moderate and severe noise induced, keyhole hearing loss, and they can afford the best, and will want it invisible. This is the prime market for hearing aids. The children's needs are secondary, but benefit from the development done for other groups.

After Reid ate his hearing aid battery in 1987, I wrote to all the hearing aid companies suggesting a screw on the battery compartment would save children's lives. They wrote me back saying "It would be too difficult for the older people to deal with, and children were not a market." We have come a long way. 

The successful development of the cochlear implant has removed the deaf end of the hearing aid market. The focus of the first hearing aid technology was to get sound loud enough for deaf people to hear again. The cochlear implant is so successful in most cases, that the hearing aid companies had to find new markets or quit. This is part of the vastly improved technology. Also it is easier to get better sound when it only has to replace mild moderate or severe hearing losses.

Speech, and human communication and knowledge for a child with hearing problems is completely predicated on what is in the child's ears. 

We are finally beginning to be able to sort of replicate the human ear with technology.  A FM is always necessary.

If anyone has to make do with cheaper hearing aids, it should be the child with a greater hearing loss. Children with mild and moderate hearing losses have background noise problems which the more expensive hearing aids can  finally handle. 

The hearing aid previous to the one that broke sits in a box as the back up aid. Every morning I got the hearing aid out and asked Reid if he wanted to wear it until the new aid came in. He said, "Yucky old hearing aid sounds awful." and went to school without amplification.

Reid is sixteen, and makes his own choices. He will not wear the five year old hearing aid which represented the prime of the technology when we bought it. That hearing aid was used for two years, and replaced by the programmable analog aid with microlink. From a usage point of view, it is not an old hearing aid.

In Ontario we get $500 towards the hearing aid from ADP. Reid's new hearing aid has a FM built in, which is entitled to an additional grant if the audiologist writes a prescription for the FM as needed at home, but not school. The school provides one transmitter and several head sets (for each teacher who teaches Reid). We have another transmitter for use at home. Both transmitters must be set to the same frequency. Reid has a pass around mike for groups which works well. It is marketed as a multiple use microphone which can be used as a personal FM or "table" top microphone. However Reid finds there is too much rubbing from the teacher's clothing. It is also painful if someone picks up the microphone from the table when it is on.

 Use a head mounted mike on the prime care taker.

Traditionally, the audiologists thought the FMs were needed at school, but FM's are needed the whole day, especially for a toddler. I have a FM transmitter for the first time. The first thing I said was "I love you." Then after using the Ling Sounds and one of our many passwords which sound like CATSPIT, I asked Reid to clean up his room. Despite all the technology, he still cannot hear that phrase. When I complained to the audiologist, he said it was a special program for teens.

$good,$$better$$ or $$$$ best$$$$ hearing aids?

It is awesome to face the cost of hearing aids. We only have to buy one aid because Reid does not have useable hearing in his other ear, but I would still buy the best for both ears. Then he would have sound location which no hearing aid (except for a bicross) can do today.

All hearing aids have limited range, and work best when coupled with FM technology, and knowlegeable use. 

The Hearing Aid Companies could do more for Lifetime customers, which most of the kids will be.

 The hearing aid companies themselves do not have sales or special events, or financing built into the hearing aid.  The extended warranty for the hearing aid which will cost $4000 is $880. The extended warranty for my Saturn which cost $17,000 was $500. Clearly the hearing aid companies should ask the car companies how they do it. 

 Perhaps the hearing aid companies should provide free warranties for the products which they make for the expected lifetime of the products. 

Many of the hearing aid companies promise to update equipment as new developments come along.

Reid's programmable analog aid started with suppressing loud background noises and evolved to dealing with wind and producing nice music for the first time in his life. This was between 1996 and 2001.

Those old hearing aids were heavy, and cause his ear to get a hole. Yes, a real hole in his ear. We put Scholl lambskin with adhesive on the bottom of the hearing aid to stop this problem. He has a piece of cartilege where the hole was. We also used various tapes to try and stick the hearing aid to his head through anything. If the material stuck, he was allergic to it.

We used dental floss or light coloured cording to attach the hearing aids to his shirt, so they were harder to lose. Kiddy hooks came on the market just as using hearing aids became an intellectual choice for Reid.

We now have our first successful generation of babies with BTE hearing aids growing up. With much earlier hearing testing it is possible for the child to develop all the neural pathways at the right time which late diagnosis, and inferior hearing aids, and no FM's did not. It is just getting better all the time to have a child who needs hearing aids to hear.