I had same situation as Skinner my son started having hearing and speech problems due to the constant infection in his ears. I wish he had done it sooner. Only drawback we had was that we had to be careful when he started swimming cause water can get in there a bit easier.
We had to put our son in speech therapy due to waiting to long for his tubes.
Best example of what he is hearing right now is that it sounds like he is listening to someone underwater trying to talk to him.