Read Amy‘s touching account of how she felt when her young daughter was finally diagnosed with a hearing impairment after 2 years of worry and concern.

My 3 year old daughter ‘failed’ her two year check last year due to her poor speech. I remember when the health visitor told me we had to refer her for speech therapy: I was gutted and I did actually cry, not out of anything other than pure worry.

As a baby my daughter was different to my other children were as babies. She was very quiet and when she started making noises they were just shouts not ‘oo’ or ‘gaga’ or ‘dada’, just sounds. I was always concerned about her hearing because I could shake a rattle next to her and she wouldn’t move her head to the sound, just as if she couldn’t hear it.

Fast forward to today and we are still having speech therapy and she has been diagnosed as deaf. She has a permanent deafness in both ears for high pitched sounds and she has to wear hearing aids in both ears.

Learning that she has a permanent deafness was shocking but also came with a sense of relief finally knowing that my thoughts about her having a hearing problem were correct.

I carry a huge amount of guilt and frustration with me about the whole thing, I was lead to believe that she didn’t even have a hearing problem and all I had to do was try harder to help her talk. I was told that because I have SO many children she obviously didn’t have as much attention. I was even told that her deafness wasn’t severe enough to affect her speech.

Did it make me feel like a rubbish parent? Yes it did!  In fact, I still feel rubbish now, every time I feel my frustration rising because she doesn’t listen or I have a day of crying and screaming because she can’t talk I feel like I let her down.

Learning your child has a permanent disability is a big deal and I still feel like I’m not sure what I’m doing, all I know is that I’ll keep giving her all the love and extra attention she needs and hopefully we’ll both make it out the other side smiling.

Did you worry that your child had a hearing impairment or other disability when he/she was a baby only to find out later that your instinct was right? Share your experience with Amy in a comment below and we’ll send one of you a Twist N’Pop straw cup to say thank you.

Please seek advice from a medical professional if you are worried about your child’s hearing. If your child has a hearing impairment you may find the NDCS (National Deaf Children’s Society) website a useful resource.

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