Hearing Loss With Other Disorders

[SoCalAud]

Cleft Palate +/- Lip:

Has anyone worked with a patient with cleft palate +/- lip? I do understand that some patients have a conductive hearing loss while others don't.

I grew up with a boy diagnosed with Treacher's Collins Syndrome and never knew how that syndrome affected his hearing loss. I'm currently taking a Craniofacial course for CD major and we discussed a lot about that today. I jumped over to PubMed and it is loaded with published research articles on that topic.

So, has anyone worked a patient with a cleft palate? How was your experience? How did you feel?

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[TheEarDoc]

Cleft Palate +/- Lip:

Has anyone worked with a patient with cleft palate +/- lip? I do understand that some patients have a conductive hearing loss while others don't.

I grew up with a boy diagnosed with Treacher's Collins Syndrome and never knew how that syndrome affected his hearing loss. I'm currently taking a Craniofacial course for CD major and we discussed a lot about that today. I jumped over to PubMed and it is loaded with published research articles on that topic.

So, has anyone worked a patient with a cleft palate? How was your experience? How did you feel?

I've worked with a few cleft palate +/- kiddos in conjunction with speech language pathologists. A couple had no major hearing issues except for the constant fluid in the middle ear space due to poor development of the kiddo's eustachian tubes, but PE tubes fixed that easily enough.

A couple actually had no ossicles in the middle ear space and had bone conduction ABR performed on them and they did have intact inner ears so they were sent on for bone anchored hearing aids (BAHA's) with soft band fittings and from the last I knew from talking to previous clinicians they are doing awesome!

Cleft palate/lip kiddos are an interesting group. I was fortunate to work in a clinic with an amazing SLP who specialized in infant feeding so it was really cool to watch her do oral motor therapy for feeding.

 

[SoCalAud]

Cleft palate/lip kiddos are an interesting group. I was fortunate to work in a clinic with an amazing SLP who specialized in infant feeding so it was really cool to watch her do oral motor therapy for feeding.

That is so neat! And it's a good feeling to know that these kids can be helped and move forward in their life. My cranio professor actually had a cleft palate himself, so he specializes in that area. I'm not surprised! He can really relate to the patients and help relax the parents.

He showed us a couple of great video clips about the feeding and hearing part, as well as the emotional part of the parents. I need to go back and ask him for the title of those videos and post that on here for anyone interested.

By the way, you're so fortunate to work closely with SLP's and it sounds you really love what you're doing!