Recommended hearing tests
Hearing screening of newborns before they leave the hospital or maternity ward is optional. This screening is, however, a great tool as it’s important that a child's hearing loss is diagnosed before 3 months of age to prevent developmental delays. This can be done via an Otoacoustic Emission test (OAE) and an Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) test.
When evaluating the hearing of an infant (7 months to 2 years), in addition to the tests stated above, a hearing test of the infant may include a behavioural audiometry test and sound field testing with visual reinforcement.
The hearing of a toddler (2 to 3 years) can be evaluated using Conditioned Play Audiometry (CPA).
The hearing of an older child can be evaluated using a Tympanometry.
Any child that does not pass these hearing tests will be recommended to undergo an audiological evaluation.
How often should a child be tested for poor hearing?
Hearing loss should be identified by 3 months of age and no later than 4 months of age for new-borns. However, a healthcare provider can arrange a hearing test for a child at any age, if a parent perceives that their child might be hearing impaired.
Look out for signs of your child not reacting to loud sounds or your talking when you are behind them and they can’t see your mouth moving.
What are the implications of poor hearing in the classroom?
Hearing is crucial to speech and language development, communication and learning. Hearing loss causes delays in the development of speech and language and those delays can result in learning difficulties, often resulting in poor academic performance. Research shows that hearing loss can result in between 25 to 35% of children with unilateral hearing loss failing at least one grade level.
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) have indicated that children who have mild to moderate hearing loss and receive no intervention are likely to be behind their hearing peers by one to four grade levels. Also, children with a more severe hearing loss, that receive no intervention, seldom progress beyond the third-grade level.
Apart from academic performance, a child with hearing difficulties would find academic areas involving language concepts the most challenging. Vocabulary, languages, sentence structure and idiomatic expressions are particularly demanding for a child affected by hearing loss to grasp. This is compounded by the frustration and confusion that a child might experience. Further, research has found that vocabulary develops more slowly in children who have hearing loss. Children with hearing loss learn concrete words like ‘cat’ more readily than abstract words like ‘jealous’ and function words like ‘a’. These children also find words with multiple meanings challenging (i.e. ‘bat’). Children with hearing loss understand and produce shorter and simpler sentences than children with normal hearing. This is further exacerbated since children with hearing loss often cannot hear word endings such ‘-ed’ and quiet speech sounds such as ‘s’. This can cause misunderstandings and misuse of verb tense, pluralisation, non-agreement of subject and verb and possessives.
Hearing difficulties can delay the development of receptive and expressive communication skills and as such a child with hearing loss can also experience trouble socially. Since communication is pivotal to social interactions and healthy peer relationships, the inability to communicate efficiently could result in isolation, unhappiness and poor self-concept. Children with hearing loss can also mature socially slower, which can hamper peer relationships.
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