A Hospital's Ability To Evaluate Auditory Function In Newborns

In United States, Some sort of hearing loss has become the most common defect occurring

at birth according to the findings of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management, with three out of every 1,000 babies affected.

From a simple discomfort in the ear to severe hearing disorders to complete deafness, there can be varying degrees of hearing loss. A common remedy for hearing loss in children is a combination of therapy and hearing aids.

When other treatments prove ineffective, cochlear implants provide a very comforting solution to those with hearing loss. Hearing aids are ineffective when a part of the ear is damaged; but cochlear implants bypass the damaged part and deliver sounds straight to the auditory nerve. Hearing can never be brought back to the original state even with these devices.

Doctors will always prefer babies being screened. Therapies started within the first few months give babies a head start in building their language skills.

Right after birth, a new procedure can detect hearing defects in babies. Normal language development is made feasible by modern procedures in children born with hearing loss provided this defect is detected within six months.

22 to 26 months is about the age at which hearing loss gets detected in children. Many a times, hearing problems manifest as speech or language development problems.

By implementing a new procedure, medical teams are now able to detect hearing problems in newborn babies even before they are discharged from hospital.

Otacoustic Emissions can now be used to detect hearing problems in newborn babies. A soft probe placed in the ear canal delivers sounds. The probe also incorporates a microphone that picks up an echo of the sounds produced in the inner ear, or cochlea. 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.

The Auditory Brainstem Response test is the next step for those babies who do not pass the OAE. 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 no more than 15 minutes.

Although the duration of these tests is small, the requirement is that babies must be asleep. Many a times, around the age of 2 years, hearing problems manifest as speech or language development problems.

That is why, screening all babies is most advisable. 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.

Babies who fail both these tests are sent to an audiologist for diagnostic testing. This happens in about two percent of the cases.

To compensate for hearing loss, amplifications are now available for infants as small as 2 to 3 months of age. These children are sure to develop normally if this kind of help is made available early.

by: Delvalle jennifer

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