Chan Si Hui used to ignore her parents when they called out to her or talked to her.

They felt the girl, then seven, was too caught up in her books and television shows or that she was becoming rebellious.

Once, when her mother got angry at her for not going to the dinner table, Si Hui cried: 'Mummy, you didn't even call me!'

It only dawned on her mother, MrsChin-Neo Phaik Hoon, 42, a manager, that something was wrong when they were both watching television.

As Mrs Chin-Neo chatted with her, the girl did not even turn to look at her.

That realisation led to a visit to an ENT specialist. The doctor found that Si Hui had lost more than half her hearing in both ears and that a middle ear infection had left them clogged with a yellowish fluid. This could have gone on for half a year.

In August 2008, the girl had day surgery, with little tubes inserted in her eardrums to drain the fluid from her ears.

After that was done, she asked: 'Mummy, why is it so noisy?'

She had been missing out on everyday sounds - especially high pitched sounds such as a spoon falling on the floor or children screaming - all the time she had the infection.

When Si Hui returned to class the following day, she could hear the teacher's marker on the whiteboard, her classmates whispering and book pages being flipped.

Si Hui, now nine, no longer has the sniffles, which arose from an allergy problem and the ear infection.

Last year, her younger sister, Pin Jie, six, was found to have middle ear infection and she too had tubes inserted in her ear to drain the fluid. In her case, it was her long and loud snores at night that alerted her parents to a possible problem.

Mrs Chin-Neo said that her children did not know how to blow the mucus out when they had blocked noses, so the fluids accumulated and caused an infection.

Now both their ENT problems are gone.

This article was first published in Mind Your Body, The Straits Times.