Z.F. is a 6 year old female, with known hearing loss, also seen on the Caribbean mission. She had an ABR at age 2 that showed left ear as having only a cochlear microphonic; the right ear had cochlear microphonic but also wave I, possible III and questionable V.  She has been wearing hearing aids.  One is lost, the other was in poor condition but still functioning when we saw her for diagnostic testing.

When we evaluated her, ABR was consistent with bilateral auditory neuropathy.  Otoacoustic emissions were absent.  She has a severe to moderately severe, bilaterally symetrical, hearing loss, slightly worse in the low frequencies.  Her picture-pointing SRT was 10 dB above PTA in the left ear, and 25 dB above in the right ear.  She could not understand speech sufficiently to participate in word recognition testing.

She is educated in an oral classroom because the island does not have signed instruction.  Her mother talked about her desire to bring Z to the US; having been born in the states, ZF is a US citizen.  However, that is not financially viable at the time. Even replacement hearing aids are out of financial reach; the donations from ReSound were most appreciated.  Mrs F was counseled about internet resources such as the John Tracey clinic to aid her in guiding Z’s speech and language development.

New hearing aids were obtained for her, and for instructional use, a teacher worn microphone sent the FM signal to her hearing aids.  Even though ReSound had also donated a “back up pair”, Mrs F was concerned that her healthy, active daughter might lose a hearing aid accidentally.  We did not have hearing aid “huggies” in black, but had a beige set that could then be pinned to the back of her shirt.  Neither Z nor her mother had any objection to the obviously inappropriate color of the huggies.

• In fitting amplification on a child with ANSD, are there any special programming changes you would make?
• For a 6 year old, which hearing aid / earmold features will add to the safety; which features used on a younger child do you think are no longer needed?