New Member ITE questions

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

We are new members. We have a son who is almost seven, blind, and

recently experienced the onset of mild hearing loss which will be

slowly progressive. He is a very bright, happy guy who attends our

local school and covers the same material as his peers, only in

braille.

The hearing loss and what to do about it is all new to us. When we do

get him hearing aids, we will be looking at " in the ear " hearing aids.

My understanding is that in the ear aids are not commonly done for

children? The reason we will be looking at those is because behind the

ear aids place the microphone on the outside of the pinna, and that

would affect our son's ability to localize sound and his spatial

hearing, which are very important as he is blind. In the ear aids would

help tremendously with this problem.

So, I am wondering if there are other parents whose children wear in

the ear aids in this group, and if you can share information with me? I

am wondering about the brand or specific aids your children wear, and

also maintenance involved, i.e. my understanding is that the problem

with ITE aids for children is that children outgrow them quickly, does

this mean that the whole aids need to be replaced, and if so how

fequently? Also, how are they for sports? Our son is very much into

sports.

Regarding funding, we are up in Canada and from the research I have

done it seems that we will be partially funded through our provincial

health system and partially funded through my husband's benefits but

that we will be paying a considerable chunk out of pocket.

Thanks very much,

Tricia