Hearing Test Results!!

Yes, I know I am running behind on the blogging already!  But on Monday, Eric had a booth hearing test. 

The tests go like this:

Brad or I hold Eric on our lap with one audiologist in front of him.  The other audiologist is outside the booth with the microphone.  She talks or plays noises and makes the toys inside the booth light up in the direction the sound is coming from.  The audiologist inside watches Eric closely for responses and shows him the flashing toy even if he doesn't seem to hear the noise.  Pretty simple.

Last time Eric was sleepy so we did not get to test him very long.  This time was MUCH better.  Brad held him this time, so I got to watch through the window.  She starts at lower volumes and works her way up.  I'm not 100% sure how low, but it's not low, it's fairly loud.  I want to say they start at 60 dB.  I assume that is because of Eric's level of loss.  We know from his behavior that we would be wasting our time testing at regular everyday noise levels.  He simply doesn't respond to them.

We started with speech.  Moving from 60 dB up to 85 dB.  90 dB is the level at which we could be damaging the hearing of other two people in the room!  After we tested the speech, we moved onto just tones, but at different frequencies.  Sounds are more easily heard at lower frequencies than higer frequencies, so again, we start low and work our way up.  This is where Eric started to get tired so we only got to test at 65 db and 250 Hz. 

And...  Drumroll please...

Eric had definite responses at 85 dB for speech and 65 dB at 250 Hz!!  I know that doesn't exactly help much in real life, BUT it was amazing to see my son HEAR something.  He was so cute, he'd turn his head and wave.  = )  And to know that his ears do function is reassuring as well.  They say almost no one is totally deaf.  That if you could get enough volume, every Deaf person would hear at least a little.  But as a parent, you still wonder.