That's Ten Years: Triumph in an Audiology Booth

Sometimes it all just comes together.

Charlie had a hearing test yesterday. He and Jim and my parents and me (the family that goes to testing for The Boy together sticks together) all went to the rehab section of a local hospital. The testing was done by an audiologist in a small sound-proof booth (so my parents had to stay in the waiting room---no room in the booth for all). The audiologist put squishy (best word to describe them) yellow headphones on Charlie's ears and, after first testing to make sure he didn't have any ear infections or swelling (he's had maybe two ear infections since he got ear tubes in April of 1999), she had sit in the booth at a little table (so little that Charlie tilted the table when he pulled up his knees under it). Jim and I went over a laminated sheet of pictures with Charlie and he identified all of them except for one of a cowboy (but if it had been a train conductor......).

Another audiologist sat outside the booth and said a series of words that sounded alike (socks/clocks); the first audiologist held up a card with eight or so pictures on it and Charlie had to point to which one was said. He'd been asking for a break and saying he was done after the initial testing; with the audiologist sitting beside him and holding up the card, he settled immediately into "school-time mode" and smiled at Jim and me across the table (I was sitting at it; Jim stood by). And Charlie identified almost all the words correctly on the first try, and gladly.

Then the first audiologist pulled out a color-shape-pegboard toy that Charlie used to have once upon a long long time ago (as in, when he'd last had his hearing tested---spring of 1999). She took off all the foam shapes and instructed Charlie to listen for a beep from the headphones and, on hearing the beep, to put the foam shape on the matching-colored peg. She gently held Charlie's hand so he wouldn't put the foam shape on the peg till he heard the beep and after just a few rounds, he got it, and did the beep/put-shape-on-colored-peg activity twice over, and gladly.

"We're done!" the audiologist proclaimed with a smile. She explained the test to Jim and me: Through the headphones, Charlie had heard words and beeps said at different volumes; he could hear these even when in a whisper, and his hearing is within normal range. Jim and I noted that Charlie had last had his hearing test when we lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Charlie was just being diagnosed with autism.

Then, it had been basically impossible to test his hearing, let alone test him. The audiology exam was one of many tests that Charlie had to do in a two-day evaluation at the Child Development Center at the Minneapolis Children's Hospital. He struggled just to stay in the testing area and in the room for each test and not to cry, scream, or otherwise make it clear, he wanted out. For the audiology test, he had to stay in a small room (I can't remember if Jim and I were allowed to be with him) while a series of noise-making animals (bear with cymbals, bear with drums, other stuffed creatures with mini musical instruments) appeared out of the wall. Charlie didn't really look in the direction of the noise; he was crying for much of the test, as it was, and the audiologist and Jim and I had to mutually, sadly, agree that we couldn't really do more than that.

Flash forward to yesterday afternoon, Charlie sitting in the tiny sound booth, alert, grinning at times, talking, frowning and furrowing his eyebrows---"that's ten years" Jim said, and we both were thinking of all the efforts, hours, struggle that we and so many teachers and therapists had invested to educate Charlie. It occurred to me that he hadn't had a hearing test till now because he wouldn't wear headphones until a few months ago (his current teacher taught him to wear them); because it was thought that it'd be "too hard" for Charlie to go through the test. It took effort and concentration on Charlie's part to do the test, to look at the pictures and understand what was asked of him. But rather than groaning at the prospect of having to concentrate and focus, I think Charlie was eager to do so. He's certainly used to doing these at school and, after being on Spring Break for a week, his face suggested that he was relieved to be back in "school-time mode."

Charlie ran out of the booth to see my parents. Jim and I followed slowly, eager to relate the latest chapter of Charlie's accomplishments and very, very, very proud.