Significant Hearing Loss May Be Prevented By Having Your Baby Tested Early

Though newborn Sean, 8 pounds and 6 ounces, was not awake to realize it, his hearing was being tested 36 hours after he was brought into this world. A professional audiologists wheeled the baby's bassinet towards a computer which has wires extending from it. The audiologist placed a small plastic probe attached to one of the wires in the baby's right ear, then typed some keys on the computer. Complicated looking multi-colored graphics were shown on the computer screen. To get a closer look on free hearing tests visit this site.

This high-tech procedure was developed for use at this ear research center in order to give very young children hearing tests as soon as possible to give them a head start on life. There are approximately four thousand kids each year born with hearing problems, and twenty-four thousand more infants experience some extent of hearing loss. The testing procedure is known as an OAE or otoacoustic emissions test, which is used by pediatricians and parents of newborns within just hours of their birth to test for hearing loss in babies, regardless of whether the infant has any indications of hearing loss or not.

Parents and doctors sometimes do not realize that there is a problem with a child's hearing until they are two or three years old. The outcome may prove to be devastating. Learning language and how to speak can be delayed by hearing problems. A child might not be able to correctly pronounce words until a later age, and they may be much less aware of the environment in which they live. The first 2 years of life is the most crucial phase of any child's development, as far as emotional and intellectual progression is concerned. Hearing issues going undetected have been know to lead to a misdiagnosis in a child's mental capabilities.

OAE testing begin in 1990, but before this, it could be expensive and complicated to test each newborn baby. The test employed in those days was called the auditory brain stem response, and it did provide an accurate reading of a child's hearing ability. The test is conducted by measuring brain activity of the auditory nerve through the use of electrodes attached to the infant. The complicated ABR test is very accurate but it takes a half hour, costs ninety dollars or more, and a physician or audiologist must administer the test. There aren't enough physicians and audiologists in the world to give the test to every newborn. Read this site if you want hearing screening information.

An audiologist is not required for the OAE testing and this test is inexpensive. This new exam has cut the time to approximately 5 minutes by exposing the small hair cells in the cochlea to sound and analyzing their response. There are two parts to the wand placed in the ear - a transmitter that produces the sound and a microphone that measures the vibrations of the hair cells. Back with baby Sean, the audiologist moved him slightly to his other side and repeated the process, smiling as the results flashed across her screen. Fortunately, Sean's hearing fell within normal range.

Additional testing is needed if the baby fails the first OAE test, occurring about a week later. The reason is that during birth some fluid can be pushed into the ear canal, which can make the baby's tests come out poorly. If the test that is performed a week after the first failed test comes up with poor results, then an auditory brain stem response test is given to the baby to further pinpoint the issue. Once the results are in, the pediatrician, parents and audiologist meet to discuss what options may exist.

Hearing aids can be worn by children starting at the age of 3 months in cases where there is minimal hearing loss. Occasionally, this is all that is necessary to correct their hearing issues. For more severe cases, a cochlear implant can be performed when the child is eighteen months old, and that will correct the child's hearing for his or her lifetime.

For those cases where the hearing loss is more severe, parents must spend more time with the infant and use visual cues when teaching the baby about the surrounding environment. This type of rigorous attention has been shown to help the babies develop at a normal intellectual rate in most cases. A parent must also decide how to help their child cope with hearing loss, and there are many options to choose from, such as the use of a hearing aid or cues speech, lip-reading, and sign language.