More hearing research

When Louka was six months old, she participated in some research for the National Acoustic Laboratories. However, it was a long process and she got tired of it when only the data from her right ear were collected. Today we went back to get data from her left ear.

This time I asked Kirsty what the actual sounds are that Louka hears in these tests. They are just an "aaah" sound that goes on for two seconds. When the sound starts, there is a change in the brain-wave pattern, and again when the sound finishes. Then they play the "aaah" sound again with a gap of a few milliseconds in the middle. In adults with normal hearing, there's another change in the brain-wave pattern, but in people with auditory neuropathy, there is no change. Before this, no-one had tested it in babies, so no-one knew whether babies would show the same brain-wave patterns ― their reactions are slightly different from adults' reactions to the continuous sound.


However, the results of Louka's first test showed that there is a reaction to the gap in the sound ― a W-shaped dip in the brain-waves. This is good, because it means they'll be able to test for the condition in babies, and do something about it early. But of course they'll need more tests. Kirsty is hoping to test 30 babies, though she said she's be happy with 20. I hope she finds them!

After the data were collected for Louka's left ear, we went on to Eastwood to see my parents. Louka showed Trishy how she could crawl (two steps) and spent the afternoon saying "mumumumum"...