ABR test at the Audiologist

Gary, Kirstie, and I took Maria to the audiologist this afternoon (Macella was at camp). Maria's appointment was for an Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) evaulation. We were supposed to have Maria fall asleep at the office and then have tones played in her ears while electrodes were placed on her. She was not cooperative. We all sat in a dark hot room and tried to put her to sleep. Maria fell asleep, but as soon as the audiologist touched her ears she woke up and started fighting and screaming. At this point, she became even more alert. That meant more time in the dark hot room! She finally fell asleep again and the audiologist did the testing. Since Gary was the final one to be holding Maria, I was able to see the screen while the testing was completed. It became quite obvious that Maria was not responding to any of the tones.

The audiologist explained that Maria did not appear to respond and wondered if we wanted to bring her back for ear molds for hearing aids. She said they could be on for 6 months to a year and if they didn't work then looking into other options, such as a cochlear implant may be an option. As a speech pathologist, I was sure that waiting a year would be much too long. The audiologist agreed and we're going to proceed with hearing aids now and at the SAME time we are going to look into cochlear implant teams.

Since Maria was already hot and upset, we fitted her earmolds while we were at the office. The entire appointment took more than 2 hours. We made an appointment to pick up and try hearing aids on July 27th.

Test results: no response to 90dB click bilaterally. Also no response to 80dB at 500Hz tone bilaterally. This indicates a profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.