Your baby’s formative years can be challenged due to hearing loss. Support your child’s development through age appropriate hearing tests.
Detecting Hearing Loss in Infants
Origins of hearing problems can vary. They may be genetic or hereditary. Children’s hearing patterns can also be affected during the mother’s pregnancy or right after child birth. Infections and contracted sicknesses may also occur, and one of the bodily effects can be ear complications.
If your child’s hearing condition isn’t detected at an early stage, difficulties in speech patterns will occur. Hearing loss can also affect your little one’s learning abilities. Should you detect signs of listening challenges, don’t hesitate to urgently schedule for a hearing test.
Recognize the Challenges Early On
Preventing conditions is obviously better than finding their cure. Know your child’s hearing abilities and identify early signs of hearing loss through these stages:
• Pre-Natal or Congenital
By this time the child should be hearing the mother’s voice in the womb. While it’s visually impossible for you to know if your baby can hear well, there are technological developments available to carry out hearing tests.
Scanners and audiometers can be combined to check on how the child reacts inside the mother’s womb. Patterns of reactions can be identified when the mom speaks and whenever beeps are pressed for sounds. The minimal requirement is for the child to express movements at cues of audible patterns.
• First Month After Birth
If your child is constantly unable to respond and calm down with soothing sounds, check whether it’s due to the inability to hear from your voice. Your child should mostly love hearing you talk as a parent, especially if you’re a mother. Reactions to sudden noises are also signs of healthy hearing abilities. Should your little one be unable to respond to basic sounds, it’s best to consult with a pediatrician to clear your child’s auditory health by detecting hearing loss in infants as early as possible.
• Your Child’s Ninth Month
This is one of the earliest crucial stages for your child. It means your little one should be all the more responsive and mostly interested in what he or she is hearing all around. You can train your child to speak basic words.
If it takes even more time for the words to register and be said back, this is one sign you should consider. A child should be responsive to what he or she hears as well, especially when you’re giving basic directions (such as getting a small pillow or throwing a toy for the dog to fetch).
• At Three Years Old
At this point, your child should be able to speak simple sentences, and express his or her thoughts. You can notice a pattern whether your little one can normally pronounce words. You child should already have clear speech patterns.
If you need to keep repeating what you say during speech imitation exercises, take this as a cue for consideration. Notice how your child also reacts with inside family stories. If your little one isn’t a fan of broccoli, say the word during an exercise and notice if he or she flinches upon the word’s pronunciation.
A person’s capabilities are crucially formed during the early years of growth and development. Be extra keen on identifying your child’s capabilities, specifically on hearing patterns. Make sure to regularly consult with a pediatrician and hearing test expert today.
Good Resource for New Parents: The Everything Baby’s First Year Book: The advice you need to get you and baby through the first twelve months
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