It's (semi)offiical...
Sep. 25th, 2009 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosebeeThe part of my brain that my ears talk to doesn't work very well.
I had my APD (Auditory Processing Disorder) testing yesterday.
I don't recall everything they did, but it was very short - only about an hour and a half. They did a 4-part thing that was on a CD. First I had to repeat words, but the words had been passed through a filter, so they had some sounds removed. Then they gave me words in both my ears - different words at almost the same time. First I had to repeat back the right ear word and then the left ear word, and then vice versa.
Then my two ears heard two different near-simultaneous sentences. I had to ignore my left ear and repeat only what was heard in my right ear, then vice versa. Then was the really hard bit - I had to repeat words, but there was godawful background noise! Not just static, but background noise of multiple people talking and babbling. Nothing that was identifiable as actual other words, but lots and lots of babble. And while the babble was going on, I had to repeat back the words - first the right ear, and then the left.
I also had one where two different sentences were given in my left and right ears. I was given a list of the sentences, and by saying the number of the sentence I had to tell the audiologist which two sentences I was hearing.
And then I had one where there were high and low pitched tones, and I had to say the pattern I heard them in.
The audiologist is still writing the report, and will mail it to me when it's done. After all the tests, she went back to her office briefly (5 min) to do some scoring. When she came back she said I did rather well on almost everything... I did VERY poorly on the bit where I had to repeat words with all the background noise. Also my left ear doesn't work as well as my right. It's very common to see a much larger discrepancy than mine in children, but by about age 12 the two ears even out... but mine never quite evened out. She said it wasn't a big enough discrepancy to be abnormal, but it was a discrepacy.
Since most of my problems are not showing up at work, but in group/social situations she said an FM system that's meant for classroom student/teacher type use wouldn't be of much help. I asked if it would help at all for those times my husband & I are going out to dinner & I can't hear him... and she said what would help best is an inexpensive ($160) thing called a PockeTalker Ultra. A little bit bigger than a deck of cards has a plug for a long corded microphone and a plug for headphones/earbuds. Hubby & I are thinking aboug getting this.
She said I'd managed to already come up with a lot of good coping strategies. Headphones for the tv, moving away from noisy objects when someone's trying to talk to me, moving closer to the person trying to talk to me, turning off fans & other noisy things, switching to my good ear (my right ear works better) when I can't hear someone on the phone in my left ear, and other such things.
I'm looking forward to getting the official report!
I had my APD (Auditory Processing Disorder) testing yesterday.
I don't recall everything they did, but it was very short - only about an hour and a half. They did a 4-part thing that was on a CD. First I had to repeat words, but the words had been passed through a filter, so they had some sounds removed. Then they gave me words in both my ears - different words at almost the same time. First I had to repeat back the right ear word and then the left ear word, and then vice versa.
Then my two ears heard two different near-simultaneous sentences. I had to ignore my left ear and repeat only what was heard in my right ear, then vice versa. Then was the really hard bit - I had to repeat words, but there was godawful background noise! Not just static, but background noise of multiple people talking and babbling. Nothing that was identifiable as actual other words, but lots and lots of babble. And while the babble was going on, I had to repeat back the words - first the right ear, and then the left.
I also had one where two different sentences were given in my left and right ears. I was given a list of the sentences, and by saying the number of the sentence I had to tell the audiologist which two sentences I was hearing.
And then I had one where there were high and low pitched tones, and I had to say the pattern I heard them in.
The audiologist is still writing the report, and will mail it to me when it's done. After all the tests, she went back to her office briefly (5 min) to do some scoring. When she came back she said I did rather well on almost everything... I did VERY poorly on the bit where I had to repeat words with all the background noise. Also my left ear doesn't work as well as my right. It's very common to see a much larger discrepancy than mine in children, but by about age 12 the two ears even out... but mine never quite evened out. She said it wasn't a big enough discrepancy to be abnormal, but it was a discrepacy.
Since most of my problems are not showing up at work, but in group/social situations she said an FM system that's meant for classroom student/teacher type use wouldn't be of much help. I asked if it would help at all for those times my husband & I are going out to dinner & I can't hear him... and she said what would help best is an inexpensive ($160) thing called a PockeTalker Ultra. A little bit bigger than a deck of cards has a plug for a long corded microphone and a plug for headphones/earbuds. Hubby & I are thinking aboug getting this.
She said I'd managed to already come up with a lot of good coping strategies. Headphones for the tv, moving away from noisy objects when someone's trying to talk to me, moving closer to the person trying to talk to me, turning off fans & other noisy things, switching to my good ear (my right ear works better) when I can't hear someone on the phone in my left ear, and other such things.
I'm looking forward to getting the official report!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 09:07 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're getting official answers!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 12:39 am (UTC)But yes, it's wonderful to get official answers! :)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-26 04:24 pm (UTC)But I'm glad that you're getting some answers and that this will help you in the long run :-).