Since my son was a baby, we have had to make regular trips to the Ear Nose Throat doctor because he has very small/tiny ear canals that were constantly getting clogged with ear wax. In fact, when he was just born we were concerned that he had might have hearing issues because he failed his hearing test in the hospital at least two times. Afterwards we had to take him to a hearing center where they did more complicated longer testing that showed that his hearing appeared normal. Ultimately it was not until he was 6-9 months old that we were able to confirm that he did not have any hearing deficiency when the doctor performed a test under sedation.
Once we were no longer concerned with his hearing, the only issue was the amount of wax build up in his ear and how that would affect his ability to hear normally. The solution was simple - every 3-4 months we would bring him to the doctor who would check his ears and remove the wax from his ears (while a nurse and I or his dad held him down). A very traumatic experience for him and for his parents but a necessary procedure that ensured that he was hearing clearly.
As much as I hated doing this and putting my son through this torture, I knew that it was for his benefit because when his ears were clean I could see the difference and this was especially true once he started speaking and using words. Initially he would only say parts of the word (either the beginning or the end) like any other toddler or baby learning to speak but as he got older and his pronunciation was still lagging behind, it was that much more important that he had his ears cleaned. As the doctor described it to me, with all the wax in his ears he was hearing like he had cotton in his ears or a head cold and so my son was not hearing the enunciation of words as we do. Well, the cleanings helped tremendously and as much as we all loathed doing it, they became a regular event.
However, in November during a routine cleaning the doctor noticed that my son had fluid in his ears. This was perhaps due to his being sick but the doctor had him do a quick hearing test and made a note to monitor his hearing. It did not improve after 2-3 months and at that time a determination was made to insert tubes in his ears to help the fluid drain and again to help my son hear better. Due to scheduling conflicts my son did not receive his tubes until February of this year.
Why am I writing about this? I know that lots of kids get tubes in their ears whether they have the diagnose of Down Syndrome or not and that this procedure is very routine. But for my son, I believe this procedure (that took all of 10 minutes at most) made a huge difference in his quality of life. After the procedure it was as if a
new world had opened up to him. And since not only his family but his therapists have noticed a improvement in his speech. Not only his diction and pronunciation of words, which is still coming along slowly but also in his increased vocabulary and use of words. What I mean is that he is now stringing words together in phrases, where he only spoke in one word responses or two word phrases. The biggest improvement occurred at preschool when he began to verbalize more clearly. Those "good days" days at school as described by his teacher were music to my ears.
