Lincoln and the Audiologist

Lincoln and I made a trip up to visit the Audiologist on Monday.

According to the tests and charts for child development, Lincoln is at about a 9 month level for speech, even though he is 18 months. At his 15 month check up he was not saying any words. Not mama, not dada, not hi. He screeches a lot and waves frantically.

Since his 15 month check he has added mama and dada and something that sounds like banana to his repatoire.

I have not been that concerned because Deacon and Roman both talked very late. In fact, I had the school district out to evaluate Deke's speech at 27 months because he had only about a 12-15 word vocabulary. It just took him awhile to get going. He does stutter, and I imagine that is/was part of the slow talking.

But I decided, after thinking about it, that getting his hearing checked couldn't hurt. Just to be safe.

I've been trying to get time to post about this, and today was going to be the day. This morning octamom was doing a guest post on her daughters trip to the audiologist and her discovery that her daughter has severe hearing loss (years ago). The posting seemed well timed.

Just as Octamom did, we went into this little sound proof room and he sat there on my lap watching the lady through the thick glass. The room was relatively dark. Out of speakers in different corners of the room would come sounds: the ladies voice, white noise, music, barks. All at different pitches. She observed his reactions. He was done before she was.

15 minutes sitting on my lap in that hot, hot booth was enough for him.

So the test was over.

She said she didn't notice any major problems.

He did have fluid on his ears, but he is getting over a cold and she said that could account for it.

He was hearing the main things he needed to hear.

But since he quit before it was over, she wasn't able to be as thorough as she would have liked to be. So she is recommending that we come back in 2 months to retest. And at the same time check on the fluid levels.

So we now know 2 things:
1. He can at least partially hear
2. We have to go back to that hot booth.

I think I will send Noah.