Communicative Disorders Clinic Diagnoses Child with Loss of Hearing, Not ADD

René Berio finished kindergarten reading at an above-average level, but by first grade he could not focus on his work. He continually sang and got out of his seat in class, which quickly became a stressful situation for his teacher and his mother, Angie Berio.

His teacher thought René may have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and suggested his mother put him on medication. But Angie said René was not having problems at home, and she did not believe ADD was the problem. Therefore, she refused to seek treatment for it.

School psychologist Cliff Enslen saw René's needs in a different light and consequently referred him to the UCF Communicative Disorders Clinic. Audiologist Leslie Doster had only performed half of a three-hour battery of tests before she discovered René could not hear. An examination of his ears revealed fluid accumulation, which had caused his ear drums to bulge and muffled his hearing. Tubes were surgically inserted inside René's ears to help drain the liquid.

Then, after therapy at the clinic, his test scores "improved dramatically -- especially in reading," said Charlotte Harvey, director of clinical education at the clinic. René's percentile rank in a standardized reading test increased from a level of 34 percent to a level of 58 percent after completing the LiPS program at the clinic, she explained.

LiPS, short for the "Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program for Reading, Spelling and Speech," is a program that assists children in learning phonemic awareness, which is the ability to manipulate sounds in words. "It is a skill children need to have before they start school," Audiologist Leslie Doster said. "Research shows that without this critical skill, reading will not develop normally. René's chronic ear infections and long-term mild hearing loss might have prevented him from learning phonemic awareness."

Two-thirds of clinic patients are children, according to Harvey. She said most of those cases involve language, articulation and auditory processing disorders.

Since his diagnosis and recovery, René has become a lot more responsible and has improved coordination, organization and self esteem, his mother said. The 10-year-old has also become an honor roll student, and Angie no longer has to sit and help him with his homework. "I will always be grateful [to UCF]," she said.

- Angie Lewis