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Baby’s Ability To Hear Assessed At Hospital

Every year, there are about 12,000 cases of babies with permanent loss of hearing right from birth. According to the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management, some form of hearing loss affects three out of every 1,000 babies, thereby making it a very commonly occurring birth defect.

The type of hearing loss can be so diverse that in some cases it can be just a gentle feeling of hearing trouble to severe cases of being unable to hear anything. Most children who are affected by loss of hearing need to be given hearing aids and are required to undergo some therapy.

Cochlear implants help where other remedies prove ineffective. Cochlear implants send signals directly to the auditory nerve even when a damaged part of the ear is unable to respond even to amplified sound coming from hearing aids. 100 percent hearing is not yet possible even with these devices.

Medical experts will always recommend getting babies screened. Hearing therapy started within the first six months gives babies their best chance to develop their language skills.

Immediately after birth, babies can now screened for hearing defects using a procedure recently introduced. New procedures are so good that if hearing loss is detected in new born babies within the first six months, their language development can still proceed normally.

It is unfortunate that hearing problems in children are detected only after they are about 22 months old. Quite often, hearing problems do not get detected till they manifest themselves as either speech related issues or language development problems.

It is now possible to screen all newborn babies for hearing loss even before they leave the hospital.

Babies are now screened for their hearing ability using Otacoustic Emissions. The ear canal receives sounds through a soft probe. Inside the same probe is a microphone that captures an echo produced by the cochlea, or inner ear. The difference between this procedure and any conventional procedure is that it had reduced the screening time for each ear from 10 minutes to 10 seconds.

From the results of the OAE, those babies who seem to have hearing problems, are given the Auditory Brainstem Response test. In the ABR test, a throwaway earphone delivers different sounds into the baby?s ears and three painless electrodes placed on the baby?s head and shoulders measure the hearing nerve?s responses.

Each ear takes a mere 15 minutes to be screened.

Both these tests require that the babies must be asleep throughout the duration of the test. Hearing problems get accidentally discovered when children, around their age of 2 years, start having problems with speaking or with their language development.

If all babies are screened, it will be possible to provide special attention to those who need it. With this approach, children will be able to develop their language skills at school and spend the rest of their lives in a near normal manner.

If hearing loss is significant, as revealed by both these tests, babies are essentially referred to an audiologist for diagnostic testing. Diagnostic testing in needed in the case of about 2 percent of the babies.

Amplifications are now available for infants as small as 2 to 3 months old. These children are sure to develop normally if this kind of help is made available early.

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