Case 8: Comments 9
She is repeating Grade one of school. She has a very poor 68% average in word recognition.
ENT showed essentially normal hearing with bilateral ear effusions. The middle ear appearance is normal enough to exclude a requirement for repeat tympanometry.
Left ear at –5 dB line roughly at main speech frequencies.
Right ear at –15 dB line roughly at main speech frequencies.
This test falls within the standard “normal” range. Hearing affects learning a lot more if both ears are affected. This child has one essentially very well hearing ear: ie the left ear hears at the –5 dB line.
The conclusion: it is important to improve the sound level for the child to assist learning but the hearing problem is not the cause of the child’s disability.