Hearing disorders in children

Hearing impairment - impaired transmission and sensation of acoustic impact. Processing and Perception Disorders, i.e. violation of the processes taking place in the brain are called violations of the auditory processes of perception and processing.

With the help of hearing, we can perceive acoustic information, and for people, language is in the foreground. HHearing loss in children is of particular importance because the child has yet to learn the language. 

Causes

Hearing impairment can occur due to disorders in any area of the ear: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. Temporary middle ear disorders are common in children due to infections and impaired ventilation of the middle ear through the Eustachian tube. This, in turn, can cause painful and acute inflammation of the middle ear, as well as painless effusions in the middle ear, which can impair hearing for several months. These diseases become less common with age.

Congenital hearing loss is rare. In this case, most often we are talking about violations of the inner ear. Such disorders can be identified already in the first few days of a child's life using auditory screening.

Prevention

Please pay special attention to ensure that your child also undergoes such hearing screening. Regular examinations by a pediatrician (so-called O-Examinations) can reveal the possible risk and already manifested hearing impairment in children.

Middle ear problems occur most often in children with frequent runny noses or in children who have trouble equalizing pressure in the middle ear (for example, large polyps in the nasopharynx, called adenoids by the medical term, decreased muscle tone, or such a defect as a cleft palate). In case of developmental disorders of the child, it is recommended to conduct regular examinations of hearing.

Even with mild signs of hearing impairment in children, it is necessary to conduct a hearing test as soon as possible in order to prevent possible speech impairment.

Symptoms

Hearing impairment in children can be manifested by a weak reaction of the child to the appeal to him or to requests for the performance of any task, if these appeals or requests are not expressed with gestures. If hearing impairment is observed over a long period of time, then it can affect the development of speech.

In infants, hearing impairment is very difficult to recognize. A pronounced violation is manifested by the absence of the so-called second phase of babbling, which, as a rule, takes place between the 6th and 12th months, i.e. the child does not utter sounds or utters them in small quantities during this period. If you still have doubts about your baby's hearing ability, have your child's hearing tested as soon as possible.

Diagnostics

Diagnosis includes various painless methods, and in children it is carried out in the form of a game.

Similarly, as in newborn screening, the functional capacity of the middle and inner ear can be tested with a probe.

The hearing threshold can be tested with play and, for older children, with headphones. The threshold of auditory perception can also be determined in a dream, by analogy with electroencephalography. As a rule, several processes are simultaneously involved here.

Treatment

Deafness is very treatable, today even deaf children can hear again and develop speech well with the right hearing aids.

Hearing impairment treatment is selected and carried out individually, depending on the cause of this disease. In the case of persistent disorders in the area of the inner ear, medical treatment is often sufficient. Sometimes there is a need for a small operation. In case of inner ear disorders, children, as a rule, are fitted with special hearing aids.

In severe cases of deafness occurring in the inner ear, hearing aid implants, the so-called cochlear implants, are available. With prolonged hearing loss, a special complex developmental stimulation is recommended in order to avoid problems with the development of speech and with general development.