9 (1/2) month checkup

Kaylee's 9 month well visit with her pediatrician was this afternoon. She's nearly 21 lbs (80th percentile) and 29.25" (91st percentile). She had a finger pricked to test her iron levels (very good, no supplements needed), and she only had one shot. Next appointment (1 year) she'll have more again. Not really anything to report from today, which is good! Her vision is fine based on the screening from last time (6 month visit).

We went to a pediatric audiologist for behavioral testing on Wednesday. I was going to try to explain what was done, but I'll refer back to the site I mentioned in a previous post as their description of the testing is likely better than what I would write!

Following text taken from
http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/eyes/hear.html:
Behavioral tests involve careful observation of a child's behavioral response to sounds like calibrated speech and pure tones. Pure tones are the distinct pitches (frequencies) of sounds. Sometimes other calibrated signals are used to obtain frequency information. The behavioral response might be an infant's eye movements, a head-turn by a toddler, placement of a game piece by a preschooler, or a hand-raise by a gradeschooler. (For Kaylee, it was turning her head to look at various moving toys.)

The test results went along with all the other tests thus far - possible hearing loss in left ear. We're going back to Northside Audiology (yes, she's seeing doctors/specialists at 3 practices...) in another couple weeks for another ABR (Kaylee had one done at 5 weeks old - see bionic baby post)

FYI (again, posted from
http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/eyes/hear.html)...
Auditory brainstem response (ABR) test:
An infant is sleeping or sedated for the ABR. An infant may be sleeping naturally or may have to be sedated for this test. Additionally, older, cooperative kids may be tested in a silent environment while they're visually occupied. Tiny earphones are placed in the ear canals. Usually, click-type sounds are introduced through the earphones, and electrodes measure the hearing nerve's response to the sounds. A computer averages these responses and displays waveforms. Because there are characteristic waveforms for normal hearing in portions of the speech range, a normal ABR can predict fairly well that a baby's hearing is normal in that part of the range. An abnormal ABR may be due to hearing loss, but it may also be due to some medical problems or measurement difficulties.

We have been told on numerous occasions from different doctors that Kaylee seems to have a smaller left ear canal than right. So this could also be a part of the problem - some of the testing equipment does not fit into her ear as well as it could/should. It is interesting that the results seem to show that her hearing is (very slowly) improving, so it could partially be that as she's getting bigger and her ear canal is growing, the equipment is better able to test that ear. Not that we are fooling ourselves into thinking she has perfect hearing and just has a small ear canal, but it could be causing more difficulties in getting completely accurate test results. Just relaying what we've been told.

We should have a better understanding after the ABR is repeated later this month. Hurry up and wait...hurry up and wait...