Question
My 6 year old son has a profound unilateral hearing loss since birth. Although, it was not diagnosed until a year ago. I was told by his aud. and ENT that cross-aides don''t help at this age and because he has nerve damage and such a evere loss it is unaidable. At school they installed a whole room FM Soundfield System which helped tremendously. I have done a lot of research, and there is not a lot of conclusive evidence that a personal FM trainer would work better than the Soundfield. Also, I ran across a study where they fitted older kids that had minimal loss with hearing aides and they all reported success. So, my ? is what info. do you have on aiding profound unilateral loss and which FM systems provide optimal advantages? Also, is there any other things we could explore that may help my son? His language skills so far are age appropriate, thus we were shocked to discover the loss. Thank you for your time.
Answer
First, I must commend this parent for being so knowledgeable and seeking out help for their son. The failure rate for children with untreated unilateral hearing loss is about 35%. The research does show that CROS hearing aids will not help in the classroom environment nearly as much as a personal or sound field FM system. Concerning which is better - the personal or sound field system, there isn't much research. Certainly, the personal system would offer a much better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) so I personally would start there if the child would successfully wear it. The SF system would be my second choice, but I would strongly consider the child's feelings in this matter.
Hope that helps. Carl C. Crandell, Ph.D. Dept. of Communication Sciences & Disorders/ Institute for the Advanced Study of Communication Processes 352A Dauer Hall PO BOX 117420 University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 OFFICE: (352) 392-2041, Ext. 283 LAB: (352) 392-2046, Ext. 225 FAX: (352) 846-0243
Carl C. Crandell, PhD, CCC-A
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Florida
DR. CARL CRANDELL received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Florida State University and obtained his doctorate with honors from Vanderbilt University in 1989. He is currently a Professor of Audiology at the University of Florida. Dr. Crandell’s research has focused on the areas of listening, communication, and speech perception in pediatric, hearing-impaired, and elderly listeners. He has also conducted considerable research on hearing aid and classroom amplification technologies. This research has led to numerous publications, presentations at scientific meetings, book chapters, and grant funding. He is a highly sought after lecturer, who has presented over 200 seminars on his research areas.
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