CHILD HEARING TEST AND ASSESSMENT
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Child’s Hearing
A child’s quality of life and development vitally depends on hearing. Hearing helps the child learn to read, to enjoy music and to receive warnings of approaching harm. Child will have difficulty coping with many of life’s challenges and opportunity without good hearing. As a parent it is important to understand how your child hears, how to help your child prevent hearing loss and what to do if you suspect a hearing loss. Suspicion is the key to diagnosis and treatment. |
Milestones of Hearing and Communication
Most babies are born with normal hearing and some are born with hearing problems. There are other children born with normal hearing but begin to have hearing problems as they grow older. Hearing from both ears (binaural hearing) allows child to localise the sound and also helps in understanding speech in a noisy background. Below is the guideline of age appropriate hearing milestones. Remember! Every child not the same and children reach milestones at different ages. |
Age | Milestones |
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Birth to 3 months |
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3 to 6 months |
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6 to 10 months |
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10 to 15 months |
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15 to 18 months |
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18 to 24 months |
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24 to 36 months |
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Signs of Hearing Difficulty
When parents notice that their child is not responding to the sound appropriately, this may be a signal of hearing loss. Sometimes it is difficult to detect mild hearing loss or when there is hearing loss in only one ear. It is important to remember that even mild hearing loss can have negative impact on child’s development. Children with mild hearing loss may have difficulty in school and can show attention, behavioural or social problem.
Watch out for some common warning signs for hearing loss which include:
- Family/friends or teacher concern regarding hearing ability
- Lack of attention or behavioural problem
- Poorer than expected academic performance
- Not responding to sounds or someone talking
- Using ‘what or ‘huh’ frequently
- Intently looking at speaker’s face
- Difficulty understanding speech in group or background noise
- Sitting close to TV or increasing TV volume
- Unable to locate the source of sound accurately
- Delayed speech and language development
If you suspect any of the above and have concern over your child’s hearing you must contact your GP. A complete diagnostic hearing assessment is very important which will indicate about child’s hearing and also about his middle ear function.
At The Audiology Clinic the diagnostic hearing assessment is carried out by Doctor of Audiology Dr Deepak Kumar. Deepak is an Audiological Scientist specialises in hearing and balance.