Why Exactly is Early Hearing Tests for Infants and Children Important?
Hearing is a vital sense for both adults and children. It is crucial for the overall development of children. It helps improve their speech, social skills, and language. As important as hearing is, it’s unfortunate that many parents still underestimate the significance of offline tests or online hearing tests (free) in infants & children. Instead of running the test early enough, they often wait until they see signs of hearing loss before taking action.
Continue reading to discover a few reasons why visiting a hearing aid doctor for early hearing tests is worth it today. In addition, you’ll discover the different types of testing processes, including how to ensure your kid’s hearing health.
Here’s why early hearing tests are essential
As earlier mentioned, parents often underestimate the importance of early hearing tests. Instead of running the tests at the early stages, they often wait until they see signs of hearing loss. This practice is not advisable because the critical development windows of your children may have passed before you start seeing signs. In this case, intervention becomes pretty challenging.
As you already know, the first few years of your children are crucial for the following factors:
- Cognitive development
- Social development
- Emotional development
Cognitively, hearing enables children to acquire language. Language is crucial and foundational for learning and communication. It makes it easier to interpret and process auditory information.
Also, hearing helps children to understand and respond to nonverbal and verbal communication. This fosters meaningful interactions and improves their social skills.
Furthermore, hearing helps children to recognize and interpret the pitch, tone, and emotion in voices. This improves their empathy and social bonding skills.
Today, millions of children across the world suffer from hearing loss. The World Health Organization reveals that more than half of these cases could be mitigated with early intervention. Early intervention allows you and health specialists to implement timely treatments, such as hearing aids, speech therapy, and many more.
How to know if your kids need hearing tests
Unlike adults, it can be pretty difficult to identify hearing loss in children. But with the following signs, you may need to go for offline tests or online tests (free).
- For Infants (0-12 months):
- Inability to respond to loud noises.l
- Difficulty turning toward a sound source
- Inability to babble by six months
- For Toddlers and Older Children:
- Delays in speech development.
- Mentioning “What? or Huh?” too often
- Inability to follow directions
- Watching TV at high volumes
If your child currently experiences any of these signs, you certainly need to consider early hearing tests.
Types of hearing tests & processes
You have two options when it comes to getting your kids tested today: offline tests and online hearing tests (free). Both options are non-invasive but the online process is free.
With online hearing tests, you can easily and quickly examine your children to know if they’re suffering from hearing loss. The only problem, however, is that these tests don’t provide a comprehensive evaluation of your child’s hearing health.
For a more comprehensive result, it makes sense to visit a clinic in person with your kid. Below are the processes associated with testing your child offline:
- Newborn Hearing Screening—this only happens after childbirth, before a baby leaves the maternity ward.
- The second screening, known as Behavioral Observation Audiometry (BOA), helps to monitor the changes in your toddler’s behavior. The hearing aid doctor looks for patterns in the child’s sucking or widening eyes. The test helps understand how the child responds to auditory stimuli.
- Visual Reinforcement Audiometry (VRA)—this involves testing and training the child to respond to sounds from speakers.
- Tympanometry—this involves testing the movement of the eardrum. It also measures the middle ear’s ability to conduct sound to the inner ear.
- Other common test processes include:
- Otoacoustic emissions
- Auditory brainstem response
- Play Audiometry
- Acoustic reflexes
Let experts at Audiology Island help you today. Early hearing tests from this clinic help to identify issues before they affect your child’s developmental stages.
Schedule a hearing test today or check the online hearing test (free) option out.
