Audiological Evaluation

Due to the slow progress Conner has made over the last seven months at speech therapy, he was referred through Early Steps to All Children's Specialty Care to undergo an audiological evaluation to rule out any form of hearing loss. (This was decided by our ITDS-not that I agree with it)

We arrived 15 minutes prior to his appointment time and I checked us in at the receptionist's desk. She had me fill out 4 forms and hand over the appropriate identification and insurance cards she needed for his file. During this time Conner stood right by my side quietly waiting for me to complete the check-in process. I was so impressed with how well he was doing...I should have known it would be the calm before the storm.


We proceeded to the waiting are where they had a movie playing for the kids to watch. I was amazed that they actually had a sign in the waiting area letting parents know the reason for limited-no toys was because they didn't want to increase the chances of spreading germs/sickness. Conner sat in one of the kid sized chairs watching the movie until another little boy entered the waiting room and sat in the kid sized chair next to him. This prompted Conner to get up and wander the waiting room looking at the underwater murals painted on the walls. He pointed at each sea creature and I named each and every one of them for him.


After about 2 minutes he lost interest in the paintings and thought it would be fun to sneak away from me and run throughout the front office to the waiting room on the other side of the facility. Luckily the audiologist came out to get us to begin the evaulation so he was only able to get in 2 sweeps of the front office.


Dr. C brought us into a sound proof room where she had puzzles on the table for Conner to play with while she asked me some questions. He looked them over and even took the dog out of its spot and placed it back in. Then he started investigating the equipment around the room. As I tried to get him back to the puzzles he got more and more agitated and began kicking the walls, chairs and door to the evaluation room. Next, he moved on to turning the lights on and off and on and off and then on and off some more. Nothing I did could keep him interested in the puzzles. Dr. C offered him some blocks to play with. Conner was interested in those for a short time and ended up throwing them all over the room. Once he had completely emotied the bin he discovered the cabinet with the other toys in it and tried to get them as well. He was told that he had to pick up the blocks first before he could have another toy. I started to clean up the blocks and then Conner picked up a couple as well. Once they were all picked up then he was able to take out another toy.


After the brief interview, Dr. C asked me to hold Conner on my lap so she could check Conner's ears. The first test revealed that he had fluid in both of his ears and so that may effect the results of the remainder of the testing. She recommended that I follow-up with his pediatrician to check on possible infection.


Dr. C tried to do the infant hearing test on Conner that they do in the hospital but he wouldn't tolerate the probes in his ears. He would grab at them or shake his head until they fell out. There were several other tests that she was unable to do because Conner wouldn't cooperate. She asked me to reschedule to return in 3 months hoping that the fluid would be gone in his ears.


Leaving was the worst part of the entire appointment. I guess Conner didn't feel that it was time to go because he refused to walk to the car when we got outside. He did not want to hold my hand to walk to the car and decided to sit down on the sidewalk and continually tell me "NO!" Then he got up and headed for the grass area where he ran back and forth across the grass playing keep away from mommy. This went on for about 15 minutes. Finally, I grabbed him and hoisted him up kicking, screaming and flailing away and proceeded to head to the car. He was totally against getting in the car. We battled and I had a very difficult time getting him into the carseat in the back of Jimmy's car. By the time we were ready to leave, I was sweating and completely overwhelmed. All of this was with only one child, could you imagine what it would have been like if I had one or both of our other children with me?