Audiology

A couple of weeks ago we took Cody out to Laguna Niguel to see an Audiologist. The recommendation came from the psychologist who performed his Psycho-Ed eval. Sometimes there are other factors that can affect the child's focus on top of the ADHD. Hearing problems have shown to contribute to hyperactivity and loss of focus. We were very anxious to have this testing done. This ADHD thing has really opened a new world to us that we didn't even know existed. It seems that we are lead from one thing and then another and sometimes feels like there's never an end.
Okay, so back to the Audiologist appointment. Her name is Maria Abramson, Au.D., CCC-A, FAAA (what all of those initials mean...I have not a clue) She was extremely nice and really seemed to know what she was doing. She had two sound proof booths, one for Cody and another where we remained to see how Cody performed for the first test. The first test was just your every day...push a button when you hear the sound test. He did fine with this one. Next Daniel and I went back to the front office while she continued with more tests. She took his snack and some water that I had brought with them and said, "he's going to need this".(luckily I brought something) About and hour and half later she appeared at the door to call us back to her office to discuss the results.

So we all know that the brain is an amazingly complicated organ. Luckily I had an good anatomy class in college so I understood everything. Most of us know that the right side of our brain controls the left side of our body. The same goes for your ears. But your speech center is on the left side. Cody has a left ear weakness which means that when he hears out of his left ear it takes more time to process the info. When you hear out of your left ear the sound has to go to the right side of the brain and since the right side of the brain doesn't "talk" the info has to be sent back to the left side of the brain to speak and process. If you have a left ear weakness and someone/teacher is talking fast or softly the right ear may be picking up noises from another source while your left ear is picking up what your teacher is teaching. The info takes longer to process and in that time you are already distracted by the other noise and therefore miss what your teacher is saying because you processed the right ear noise quicker and was distracted by it.
It sounds confusing the way I say it, but the Dr. managed to explain it very clear.
                                                             As you see in this picture the sound goes in the left ear and is

sent to the right side of the brain and then sent back to the left side to the speech center.

This condition is not caused by ADHD, but is it's own disorder that is added on top. There are ways to strengthen his left ear and we plan to try our best to correct this issue. But some reports have shown that this issue improves as the child matures. Like I said, the brain is a crazy, complicated organ.

Next step is to have Cody tested for sensory issues. We are going to cover all of our bases.