[tri-med] ACC and Auditory Processing

I finally have the full written report from the research program Alex was in
regarding ACC and auditory processing.

Its 8 pages long and very comprehensive. The first 4 pages are actually a
summary of the different tests he was given and what they tested for.

Because its so long I will just retype the last few paragraphs which forms
the conclusion. For those that don't like jargon, the really short version
is that Alex is unique. He definitely shows evidence of the ACC with his
hearing processing. Given the depth of his problems they were surprised at
how well he is doing and using what hearing he has. He was the only child
with ACC in the study who showed any cortical interaction between the two
hemispheres. So I guess my hardwork and besotedness with maximising what he
does have has paid off. There are still problems, and the bottom line is for
those who have kids with ACC is that it DOES cause hearing processing
problems. (at least based on this research which will need to be
independently duplicated etc etc)

We got some great recommendations for Alex and if nothing else I at least
understand the different hearing pathways a little better. (There are two -
one through the brainstem and one through the cortical part of the brain)

Alex has essentially a unliateral hearing loss. He has normal hearing in the
left ear with a mild high frequency loss. The right ear has a severe hearing
loss which improves to a mild loss with high frequencies. Alex also has
Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum. Actually its dysgenesis or hypogenesis but
there are so few CC fibres and so misformed that they are deemed to not be
there in a functional sense.

So here is what they wrote:
Monaural behavioural tests of auditory processing in the left ear showed
age-appropriate scores. Alex had good discriminative cortical responses in
the left ear. Overall, Alex did quite well on our auditory processing test
battery, which mainly evaluates cortical function. The left ear has an
abnormal brainstem response (ABR), however consistent with an auditory
processing problem at a lower level in the auditory pathways.

The right ear results are generally consistent with the audiogram (speech
perception in noise, aided corticals) but indicate some immaturity of the
cortical auditory pathways compared to the left ear.

When the two ears were tested together speech-in-noise perception was
reasonably good. There were some unusual findings when the binaural cortical
responses are compared for stimuli presented from the two sides, suggesting
that binaural interaction is not completely normal however (which is what
would be expected in Alex's case due to agenesis of the corpus callosum).

Conclusion and Suggestions

Overall the results indicate that Alex has good auditory function at the
level of the cortex, but has an abnormal ABR and thus auditory processing in
his good ear is likely to be impaired. Trial of a FM aid to improve the
signal to noise ratio in his good ear in the classroom is therefore
recommended. His binaural and right/left ear cortical result suggest that
Alex's binaural interaction is unusual and there may be conflicts between
auditory processing in the left and right ears. Providing the left ear,
which has the porr ABR, with an FM aid may help to overcome this problem.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history
is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the
lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny
ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of
energy and daring those ripples build a current which can weep down the
mightiest walls of oppression and injustice."
- Robert F. Kennedy -

Keep Looking for Rainbows!!!
Karen, Mum to Alex (8, T-18 mosaic)
Sydney, Australia
http://members.optushome.com.au/karens
http://www.trisomyonline.org

                  Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows
                       www.trisomyonline.org
                  Families Helping Families On-line

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