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Audiology Assesment : Hearing tests for Autism

Audiologist

Hi

I am an audiologist and my main role is to test childrens hearing, it has come to my attention that over the last few years we have seen an increase in those children with autism.

I just wonder if anyone has had any experience with the hearing assesment with their children and how they feel the hearing test went and how the audiologist manged to test your childs hearing?  

I am very conscience as an audiologist and relaise that at times due to lack of understanding and training that obtaining a hearing test can be very difficult ?

I just wonder what you as parents feel and is there any advice and tips you may wish to give to help us audiologists?.....also any fellow audiologists out there who have any tips??

Parents

  • Hi all

    Many thanks for your replies they are all very helpful to us as proffesionals

    Our main issue or cocnerns lay with children aged 2-6 yrs we often find these the most difficult to test! We recieve a large amount of refferals from paediatricians asking for a hearing test when they have a child in the process of being diagnosed with autism. Majority of the time parents do not have concerns with hearing but will often find themselves at the door of the audiologist to have the hearing children just in case.

    All babies at birth now do get a hearing check at the bedside at birth so this should therefore eliminate any issues of hearing in the future , although paediatircians still wish to refer in for hearing tests!

    In order to test a young childs hearing a test called VRA (Visual reinforcement Audiometry) is carried out, this involves having the child sit on the parents lap whilst two speakers are situated eiother side of the child in the corner of the room, a sound is played and the idea is to teach the child when a sound is heard for them to look towards where the sound is coming from where there will then be a puppet above the speaker that lights up and jumps up and down and acts as a reward. This can sometimes cause upset and distress for those children we see with suspected autism and are therfore unable to acess their hearing realiably.

    We are thinking of investing in some calming toys and light systems that may help, but as said before we are rather limited in our knowledge on how to deal with such children and if or what we can do to help when they come and see us.

    I agree with the idea of making appoitment letters more detailed so we can inform the parents better of what is going to happen on the day and I think this is a good starting point.

Reply

  • Hi all

    Many thanks for your replies they are all very helpful to us as proffesionals

    Our main issue or cocnerns lay with children aged 2-6 yrs we often find these the most difficult to test! We recieve a large amount of refferals from paediatricians asking for a hearing test when they have a child in the process of being diagnosed with autism. Majority of the time parents do not have concerns with hearing but will often find themselves at the door of the audiologist to have the hearing children just in case.

    All babies at birth now do get a hearing check at the bedside at birth so this should therefore eliminate any issues of hearing in the future , although paediatircians still wish to refer in for hearing tests!

    In order to test a young childs hearing a test called VRA (Visual reinforcement Audiometry) is carried out, this involves having the child sit on the parents lap whilst two speakers are situated eiother side of the child in the corner of the room, a sound is played and the idea is to teach the child when a sound is heard for them to look towards where the sound is coming from where there will then be a puppet above the speaker that lights up and jumps up and down and acts as a reward. This can sometimes cause upset and distress for those children we see with suspected autism and are therfore unable to acess their hearing realiably.

    We are thinking of investing in some calming toys and light systems that may help, but as said before we are rather limited in our knowledge on how to deal with such children and if or what we can do to help when they come and see us.

    I agree with the idea of making appoitment letters more detailed so we can inform the parents better of what is going to happen on the day and I think this is a good starting point.

Children
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