Having sat through the ear moulding the week before (with Alice having behaved like the perfect patient I might add), we arrived at St. George’s for the fitting of Alice’s new aids.

The usual struggle to find a parking space, followed by the usual late running of clinic only served to raise our anxiety to an all time high. Would this be the day that Alice finally started to hear? Up to this point, Alice has been unable to produce any meaningful language. She is a wonderfully happy girl – always smiling and laughing, but has never even so much as managed a mama or dada – just the usual squeaks and squeels.

Alice has a further set of behavioural tests before the fitting. On the positive side, she seemed to perform quite well, with some responses at 55db at varying frequencies. Is this a good thing we ask? Is having a profound hearing loss worse than hearing white noise at 55db? Here is the crux of the problem with AN/AD.

Alice is then fitted with her first set of Bilateral aids as per the test results. However, on fitting, they decide to crank them up pretty high. From the off, Alice has been very comfortable wearing her aids, only really taking them out when she is in the car or when she is eating.

That said, one month on and at the time of writing, her responses at home are no better and, if truth be known, I suspect the hospital didn’t expect them to work either. we will continue the trial for three months to see if there is any benefit.

Does amplifying white noise help with speech and language development?