Hearing and Speech

James went in for another hearing test yesterday, and also a speech evaluation for a research study he's participating in.  He wasn't too happy about the hearing test part (they still do the behavioral testing, where he's supposed to turn and see the moving animals when he hears a sound), but he did well enough that they got the information they needed, and his hearing is about the same as the last time they tested (as expected).

I thought he did a great job with the speech eval.  Of course we don't have any formal results yet, but he did almost everything they asked.  Part of it is us answering questions about the kinds of things he's saying.  Another part is James repeating a sound that the examiner makes.  This is similar to a game that his hearing therapist plays with him, so he knew what to do, and he did all but one of the sounds.  The next part was naming common objects.  He did well on the first part of it (though he didn't know the word "purse" which is probably because he never hears it, and didn't say TV, which I expect he does know.)  The funniest part was that there was a picture of a car that looked a lot like my car, and his face lit up and he pointed at it and said, "Mommy!"  and then pointed to me and said, "Mommy!"  (According to the boys, the sedan is the "mommy car" and the van is the "daddy car.")

The next part involved the examiner saying the name of one of three pictures, and James was supposed to pick which one went with the word (things like boat, cow, baby, etc.), and then they tried to get him to repeat the word.  He clammed up for that one, until on one of the trials I said, "James, what's that?" and he named whatever it was instantly.  The examiner then went back to all the ones James had been quiet for and asked "what's that?", and I think James answered them all or almost all.  Go, James!

One of his hearing aids has been buzzing (feedback) so they sent it for repair and gave us a loaner -- but the loaner is doing the same thing.  Ugh.  We go in again on Monday for an ear doctor appointment, so maybe he can get another one then.

One of James's favorite new words is "again."  (I've lost track of the new ones, but "bed" and "home" are also recent additions.)  We played Ring around the Rosie this afternoon when babysitter N and her daughter were here, and after the second round James stood up and exclaimed "Again!" with glee!