Re: Widex Senso P38 100% Digital hearing aids

February 16, 2001

Hello,

My son 2 1/2 years old also has been using the Phonak Programmables

and has done wonderful with them. At this time we are in a trial

period with Siemen's Signias Fully Digital aids. We too were

concerned with having the access to the highs, especially " s " ,

he too has a moderate to severe loss. I know that we are not trying

out the same aids, but I have noticed a " significant " difference with

my son with the digitals, he is even trying to produce the " s " with

more accuracy than ever before. I am 99 % sure that we will go ahead

and purchase these aids for our son.

I would suggest your audie get " real ear " readings with the aids, my

audie said that these fully digitals with all the bells and whistles

make it hard to get a " true " audogram in the soundbooth, since they

automactically bring up the sound to a level it knows that he can

hear it, a soundbooth audiogram is kind of deceptive.

Debbie

..com

February 16, 2001

At 06:29 PM 2/16/01 +0000, you wrote:

>Does anybody uses Widex Senso P38 digital hearing aids for your kids? If so,

>how are they doing with them and how good are these aids?

>My son is wearing these aids since Feb 1st, 2001. He is 3 and 1/2 year old

>and he used to wear Phonak programmable aids and did a great job. The reason

>why I changed his aids is he was not getting 's' consistantly with Phonak

>Programmble ones and ofcourse to try new technology. My audiologist is

>totally new to these Widex digitals and she is having hard time to program

>these aids. She said she is still not totally comfortable with his mid and

>high frequencies and she is still working on it.

> My son has moderate to severe loss in his right and severe to profound

>in his left. His teachers told me that he is not hearing 'S' at all with his

>new aids and also he has some confusion in the mid frequencies. We live in

>Atlanta, GA and I would like to know if any of you know any audiologist in

>this area to help me more on my sons new aids. Also how much time does it

>take for my son to adjust with his new aids?

My son wears them. He is prelingual profound, 105dB. He was one of, if not

the, first child in the US to get them.

Two weeks is nowhere near enough time to optimize these aids. It took about

6 sessions and three months before he became comfortable with them. The

audiologist had a fairly steep learning curve at first. My guess is that is

your problem at this point, coupled with the difficulties of getting a 3.5

year old to give the audiologist the kind of fine information to tune them

correctly. Be patient, and insist that your audiologist pull in the experts

from Widex to give her a hand. Otherwise time will be wasted via trial and

error.

The P38 has been a great fit for his loss. He gets A-V open set single

words at better than 80%, and he can use the phone.

We are in the process of getting an implant for him now because he was

always borderline for aids, his speech is slipping, and he wants an implant.

Chris

<< PLEASE NOTE new email address: dehahn@... >>

<< Christofer deHahn......Director of Information Technology >>

<< Chiliad Publishing.............Amherst, Massachusetts, USA >>

February 16, 2001

At 10:49 PM 2/16/01 +0000, you wrote:

>Hello,

>My son 2 1/2 years old also has been using the Phonak Programmables

>and has done wonderful with them. At this time we are in a trial

>period with Siemen's Signias Fully Digital aids. We too were

>concerned with having the access to the highs, especially " s " ,

>he too has a moderate to severe loss. I know that we are not trying

>out the same aids, but I have noticed a " significant " difference with

>my son with the digitals, he is even trying to produce the " s " with

>more accuracy than ever before. I am 99 % sure that we will go ahead

>and purchase these aids for our son.

>I would suggest your audie get " real ear " readings with the aids, my

>audie said that these fully digitals with all the bells and whistles

>make it hard to get a " true " audogram in the soundbooth, since they

>automactically bring up the sound to a level it knows that he can

>hear it, a soundbooth audiogram is kind of deceptive.

A Real Ear may shed some light on this child's programming, since his loss

is not deeply profound. We were never able to get meaningful Real Ear

measurements out of our kids because of their profound loss.

Chris

<< PLEASE NOTE new email address: dehahn@... >>

<< Christofer deHahn......Director of Information Technology >>

<< Chiliad Publishing.............Amherst, Massachusetts, USA >>

February 17, 2001

My daughter also wears these hearing aids. She has a moderate-profound loss

bilaterally (profound at the highest frequencies). She cannot really hear the

's' as you or I would hear it, but she is hearing something- which we're very

happy about. We've been very happy with the aids, but the school audiologist is

feeling like we're still missing a lot at 3000-4000 frequencies. She is pushing

us to try the Impact aids. We'll see what happens. Our primary Audiologist (at

the children's hospital) is quite good with the Senso aids and has done a great

job with programming, etc.

We're going to see if he can adjust to compensate for the hightest frequencies

(which are down from before).

Anyway- hope this isn't too confusing! They're great aids, but it also took us

about 4-6 visits to get them adjusted to the ideal level.

Good luck,

>>> dehahn@... 02/16/01 17:14 PM >>>

At 06:29 PM 2/16/01 +0000, you wrote:

>Does anybody uses Widex Senso P38 digital hearing aids for your kids? If so,

>how are they doing with them and how good are these aids?

>My son is wearing these aids since Feb 1st, 2001. He is 3 and 1/2 year old

>and he used to wear Phonak programmable aids and did a great job. The reason

>why I changed his aids is he was not getting 's' consistantly with Phonak

>Programmble ones and ofcourse to try new technology. My audiologist is

>totally new to these Widex digitals and she is having hard time to program

>these aids. She said she is still not totally comfortable with his mid and

>high frequencies and she is still working on it.

> My son has moderate to severe loss in his right and severe to profound

>in his left. His teachers told me that he is not hearing 'S' at all with his

>new aids and also he hassome confusion in the mid frequencies. We live in

>Atlanta, GA and I would like to know if any of you know any audiologist in

>this area to help me more on my sons new aids. Also how much time does it

>take for my son to adjust with his new aids?

My son wears them. He is prelingual profound, 105dB. He was one of, if not

the, first child in the US to get them.

Two weeks is nowhere near enough time to optimize these aids. It took about

6 sessions and three months before he became comfortable with them. The

audiologist had a fairly steep learning curve at first. My guess is that is

your problem at this point, coupled with the difficulties of getting a 3.5

year old to give the audiologist the kind of fine information to tune them

correctly. Be patient, and insist that your audiologist pull in the experts

from Widex to give her a hand. Otherwise time will be wasted via trial and

error.

The P38 has been a great fit for his loss. He gets A-V open set single

words at better than 80%, and he can use the phone.

We are in the process of getting an implant for him now because he was

always borderline for aids, his speech is slipping, and he wants an implant.

Chris

<< PLEASE NOTE new email address: dehahn@... >>

<< Christofer deHahn......Director of Information Technology >>

<< Chiliad Publishing.............Amherst, Massachusetts, USA >>

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February 17, 2001

What is a Real Ear reading? I have not heard of this. We've gotten unaided

audiograms from the soundbooth, and then aided audiograms (using the digital

aids). I'm curious about this other reading?

Thanks!

>>> dehahn@... 02/16/01 17:16 PM >>>