My hearing test with an audiologist

Hello, you mob. My name is Greg and I'm Lenore. And we're Indigenous Hospital Liaison Officers.

Indigenous Hospital Liaison Officers like us can offer support if you need it. You can find us in almost every hospital, and our role is to help.

As Indigenous Hospital Liaison Officers, we can help you during your visit to the hospital. We can attend appointments with you, help you understand hospital routines, help arrange transport to and from hospital, give you an idea of other services that you can access and provide other support where needed.

If you would like to contact an indigenous hospital liaison officer, talk to your local health worker or contact Queensland hearing loss, family support service.

David Bell-Allen - ENT Surgeon: Our job initially is to examine the child and examine the results and put forward to the parents, the management plan, which is, complex and long term.

Parent: It's really just a looking appointment. They don't actually do anything to the child at the time.

David Bell-Allen - ENT Surgeon: There is a lot of commitment from all parties involved, so it's a long road and we're just the start of that.

Parent: They've made me feel comfortable and I think that's very important. He spoke to the child in a way that, it was really made the child feel comfortable. Arnold felt that he can play around on the seat and all this and have fun there , and I think at that time too, and that's how he assesses the child as well, while they're doing their own little thing. And so, I feel like I could ask him anything.

David Bell-Allen - ENT Surgeon: There is a a lot of concern at that initial appointment cause all they've been given is a diagnosis. Our job will be to dissect all that for them.

Hearing loss can be temporary and a lot of the kids are coming along now cause we've screened them and we are picking up hearing in loss what we call conduction hearing loss, and that's the result of fluid behind the ear drums. Most cases that will resolve. So as a surgeon, we will not partake in any form of intervention there, apart from a wait and see approach. There are times when those fluids, when the fluid behind the ear drum doesn't resolve the hearing loss persists gently, which we'd sit tight for three, four months but beyond that, we'd like the kids hearing. We may then progress to grommet insertion, which would correct a pure conduction hearing loss.

The other hearing loss generally will be a nerve deafness. Nerve deafness can be a mild, moderate, or severe. It can be one ear or both ears going to the end of the spectrum, if your child has bilateral, which is both ears, profound hearing loss. We live in a world now that we can treat that and treat it early I'm talking cochlear implants.

Other hearing losses may be mild to moderate. These patients would have a number of investigations. They are not surgical cases. They are treatment cases with hearing aids.

That process is instigated pretty well straightaway. We all know that kids who have hearing loss will struggle unless it's identified early, and we will get in and endeavour to aid these mild, moderate, or severe hearing loss patients as early as possible. Essentially, as soon as the diagnosis is made, it's very important that we do this to allow adequate hearing for speech and language development.

Narrator: At your first appointment, the ENT will check if hearing aids can be fitted right away or we'll discuss with you if there's any reason to wait for a while. They'll often order routine tests and may refer your child to other specialists.

Well, it happened very quick. You know, from when we found out the extent of Jacob's hearing loss. You know, was kind of a, a snowball effect. You know, basically straight away we went, you know, straight to Australian Hearing.

I think at the start you get all this help, like social workers and teachers and, all the audiology staff at the hospital. Everybody wants to be a part of you and everybody wants to help you.

Psychologist and paediatricians and ENTs, and it was, was this, you know, appointment after appointment. But it was good.

Yeah. Look, it is busy. It's, it's confronting, it's emotional, it's confusing.

It felt like we had two or three appointments a week at the Children's Hospital. But, now looking back, it was good that everything sort of flowed through as quickly as it did.

It can be a little bit overwhelming to start with, but it does settle down. Just, you know, take it easy and if you don't wanna do certain things, that's all right with you.

Everyone realised the importance of getting, getting in early on this, to give Jacob the best, you know, for his future.

There will be many appointments with professionals after a hearing loss is diagnosed. These people are there to help. A lot of these early appointments are about understanding your child and their hearing loss. Getting help as early as possible gives your child the best chance for their future communication development. Everything happens so quickly. You may have a lot of appointments in a short space of time, but this is to ensure the best outcome for your child. Things will calm down, and usually this busy time doesn't last for too long.

Dr. Alison Harris- Paediatrician: First you are looking to try and find out what the cause for the hearing loss might be, but then yes, there could possibly be some other medical issues that are going along with the hearing, and so we are checking for any of those and also checking that the child's development's on track and just monitoring that over time.

Parent: With Jacob, his weight gain wasn't up. He was below average in his weight gain and she just wanted to make sure that was, he'd be able to cope with the operation.

Dr. Alison Harris- Paediatrician: Paediatricians look at children as a whole. So yes, we are interested in the ears and the hearing. That's the reason that we're seeing this child, but, we are looking at them as a whole person. So looking at their overall health and development. What we do when we see a child is measure their length and weight and head circumference and plot them on a percentile chart to see where they're fitting in as average for their age or above or below average.

We look at specific things then like, listen to the heart and the breathing and look at their tummy.

Mum: They've had this paediatrician for the last, probably five years. And he's really good. Like he's very good to talk to and he listens to me and understands, you know, that I know Joshy very, very well.

And so when I say, you know, I'm really concerned about something, then he takes note of that. He doesn't just say, oh, don't worry about it.

Dr. Alison Harris- Paediatrician: I think that parents, should come with their own list of questions and not just answer the doctor's questions, but ask some back and make sure that any, issues, any questions I had are answered and that they have a comprehensive understanding of the outcome of that appointment.

Mum: When I'm going off to see a specialist, he'll say, okay, talk to him about this, this, and this, and ask him why they're doing this or if they should be doing that. And then after the appointments, I'll go back and tell him, these are all the answers and this is what they've said and everything and then if he's not happy, he'll contact them and let them know.

Narrator: After all the checks and assessments in the first appointment with the paediatrician, you may need to go for some follow up visits to monitor your child's ongoing health and general development. Around this time, you'll also have an appointment with an ophthalmologist as there are links between hearing loss and some eye conditions. And when your child is about six months old, there may be an appointment with a geneticist to investigate the possibility of a genetic link to the hearing loss and to give a clearer picture of your child's condition.