Hearing loss symptoms should prompt call to doctor

Day by day
Hearing loss symptoms should prompt call to doctor
By Liz Thompson
April 29, 2015
This Week News

As a youth, I loved swimming underwater. Watching the air bubbles rise to the surface caused my head to lift and see blue sky. Underwater I didn’t worry about hearing and I felt normal. Underwater everyone heard like I did.

Needing air, soon I’d burst through the water’s rim gasping. Then I’d hear it: noise. Laughing, slapping of water, yelling and the lifeguard’s whistle. I’d dive back under for peace.

By 50, I was almost deaf, wearing hearing aids, reading lips and body language. The miracle of a cochlear implant restored more than 90 percent of my hearing with clarity I’d never experienced. A few years later, a second implant gave me “surround sound.” I am permanently above water, living in a world of clear sounds, not mere noise.

Hearing loss is invisible. No tests existed in 1951, my birth year, to check babies’ hearing. Today a problem can be found within days of a child’s birth, giving way to treatment or therapy.

The American Speech-Language Hearing Association teaches that signs of hearing loss in a child include: lack of attention to sounds (birth to 1 year); not responding when calling his/her name (7 months to 1 year); not following simple directions (1-2 years); delays in speech and language development (birth to 3 years); pulls or scratches at his/her ears; once in school, has difficulty achieving academically; socially isolated and unhappy in school; and persistent ear discomfort after exposure to loud noise.

I encourage those who suspect hearing loss in their children to seek an accredited audiologist and ear, nose and throat physician to have your child examined.

Likewise, I urge adults who suspect hearing loss to be tested. It’s easy to ignore signs stating hearing aids are expensive — and they are — or they won’t work for them. I lived with both thoughts until I finally got a hearing aid at age 39, knowing since 29 I needed one.

I have learned the average person waits seven years to get a hearing aid after being told it would help. Do the math: I waited 10 years. Stubborn.

Signs of hearing loss in adults include: inattentiveness; buzzing or ringing in their ears; failure to respond to spoken words; persistent ear discomfort after exposure to loud noise; muffled hearing; constant frustration understanding speech and other sounds; avoiding conversation; social isolation; accusing everyone of mumbling; and depression.

Heather Pliskin, director of speech services at the Columbus Speech and Hearing Center, said that communication skills are directly related to academic success.

“Speaking, listening, reading and writing are the foundational skills for school and for life. Early intervention is the key. The earlier a child receives speech-language therapy, the faster the progress can be made,” Pliskin said.

Red flags for possible communication delays include: age 1, not saying a few words or pointing to pictures and objects; and age 2, not using simple two-word combinations and not being understood 70 percent of the time.

Preschool/early elementary school: age 2-3, not following one- to two-step directions; age 3, not using correct common pronouns and not being understood 80 percent of the time, 90 percent by age 5.
“When a child is young — especially before age 3 — it is especially important to involve the parents and/or caregivers in the process,” Pliskin said.

Audrey Tobias agreed.

“Speech therapy has improved the lives of every member of our family. When our son started receiving therapy at 2.5 years old, he had a vocabulary of zero spoken words. He couldn’t even say ‘no.’ We were scared to leave him in the care of anyone else because there was no way for him to tell us if anything went wrong.

“Now, two years later, he is a funny chatterbox! He cracks jokes all the time and loves to make complicated, exciting plans. We know what is going on in his life and what he’s thinking. For the first time, we feel like we really know who our son is as a person. It’s been an amazing transformation. We are extremely grateful for the skilled help he continues to receive.”

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month. Columbus Speech and Hearing Center is giving away two hearing aids to the essay winner who is most in need to understand the world around them. Go to columbusspeech.org and click the Hearing What Matters link before May 11 to learn how to enter.

The music of this world is up for grabs.

Come out from under the water and listen, and tell me all about it.

For more information, go to asha.org, dangerousdecibels.org, apraxia-kids.org or playingwithwords365.com.

Being green: A little effort nets big payoff

Day by Day

Being green: A little effort nets big payoff

By LIZ THOMPSON
March 31, 2015
ThisWeekNews

Kermit the Frog, from the children’s show, Sesame Street, made the phrase, “It’s not easy being green,” popular.

Today it is easier to be green than ever before and has quietly become an everyday event, less a social statement than a way of life.

Recycling is not new, as archaeologists have found evidence of it as early as 400 B.C. What we recycle has changed from turning brass coins into statues to disposable material, but not exclusively.

Before mass production, it was cheaper to reuse than buy new.

When we got married April 22, 1978, I had no idea that was Earth Day and had been since 1970. It’s appropriate as I married a man raised on a farm and I always considered myself an outdoor girl.

I’m a fan of being responsible and taking care of what I have. I try not to obsess, just keep our home tidy.

Years ago, our son saw me sweeping the front porch at a home we’d recently moved into.

“You really like this house, don’t you?” he said. Yes was my answer. How did he come up with that? Likely it was because I was taking care of the house, wanting it to look its best. He knew I liked to sweep — don’t ask me why, I just do. I never asked him but I was amused at the time, and the memory makes me smile.

After a hard winter, our new seedlings are growing tall in their temporary home in the basement. Little tufts of green hold promise of plants. We are planning where to put everything again this year, rotating from last year in our smallish backyard. I’m ready.

Thanks to a neighbor, we obtained a composting bin he no longer needed. This year we’ll have some really black, rich soil to add to our ground. After we plant our garden, we will care for it by watering, weeding and adding natural nutrients.

Our reward will be harvesting fully grown vegetables literally ripe for the picking. I am eager for those days again this year.

I’ve always been a proponent of taking care of our earth. I’m no expert and can’t claim that I know where or how our planet’s environment will progress. But I know that I can take care of my little section by responsibly recycling, educating myself on what we put on our lawn and garden, and not adding to any kind of pollution. The website growingagreenerworld. com is a great resource.

Again, I don’t obsess or think that catchphrases make up the whole of our world. Our air is cleaner than many other parts of the world but sooner or later, we all share the same air. It’s not as if we can block the borders in the air.

Our youngest grandson always lets us know of the best movies — often animated. He told us about WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class). The story is a worst-case scenario for the people on earth who didn’t get pollution, materialism and waste under control.

WALL-E is a sanitation robot whose best buddy is a roach. Interesting the makers of this movie chose that as the only living thing left on earth. WALL-E spends his days collecting, compacting and piling trash, almost like building blocks.

In this movie, mankind’s current home is a giant spaceship where humans float on personal hovercrafts, interact with others via screen phones and have grown so obese and sedentary that they’ve forgotten how to walk. Because of WALL-E and another robot, who find a green plant which signals it’s time for humans to return to earth, a chain of events occur that puts people and the planet back on a healthier path.

It makes me think we should use up and use wisely our material possessions instead of buying frivolously simply to have new items. I’ve always liked using cloth and canvas bags for most shopping, yet I don’t always succeed. I’m glad most stores have reusable bags available for purchase.

Noticing our stockpile of plastic bags, I remembered a story of people who use them to make mats for the homeless. After finding the instructions, we gathered our bags, my husband cuts them in strips, I weave into “yarn” and crochet small mats to use when we’re camping.

But more than anything, I love our earth and will continue to take care of my little corner. We each can do that because, unlike poor Kermit, it really is easy to be green.