A child who is born deaf should be tested for
Screening and Diagnosis of Hearing Loss
Hearing Screening
Hearing screening is a test to tell if people might have hearing loss. Hearing screening is easy and not painful. In fact, babies are often asleep while being screened. It takes a very short time — usually only a few minutes.
CDC Report: Infants with Congenital Disorders Identified Through Newborn Screening — United States, 2015–2017
Babies
- All babies should be screened for hearing loss no later than 1 month of age. It is best if they are screened before leaving the hospital after birth.
- If a baby does not pass a hearing screening, it’s very important to get a full hearing test as soon as possible, but no later than 3 months of age.
Older Babies and Children
- If you think a child might have hearing loss, ask the doctor for a hearing test as soon as possible.
- Children who are at risk for acquired, progressive, or delayed-onset hearing loss should have at least one hearing test by 2 to 2 1/2 years of age.
Hearing loss that gets worse over time is known as progressive hearing loss. Hearing loss that develops after the baby is born is called delayed-onset or acquired hearing loss. Find out if a child may be at risk for hearing loss.
- If a child does not pass a hearing screening, it’s very important to get a full hearing test as soon as possible.
Full Hearing Test
All children who do not pass a hearing screening should have a full hearing test. This test is also called an audiology evaluation. An audiologist, who is an expert trained to test hearing, will do the full hearing test. In addition, the audiologist will also ask questions about birth history, ear infection and hearing loss in the family.
There are many kinds of tests an audiologist can do to find out if a person has a hearing loss, how much of a hearing loss there is, and what type it is. The hearing tests are easy and not painful.
Some of the tests the audiologist might use include:
Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) Test or Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response (BAER) Test
Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) or Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response (BAER) is a test that checks the brain’s response to sound. Because this test does not rely on a person’s response behavior, the person being tested can be sound asleep during the test.
ABR focuses only on the function of the inner ear, the acoustic (hearing) nerve, and part of the brain pathways that are associated with hearing. For this test, electrodes are placed on the person’s head (similar to electrodes placed around the heart when an electrocardiogram (EKG) is done), and brain wave activity in response to sound is recorded.
Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE)
Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE) is a test that checks the inner ear response to sound. Because this test does not rely on a person’s response behavior, the person being tested can be sound asleep during the test.
Behavioral Audiometry Evaluation
Behavioral Audiometry Evaluation will test how a person responds to sound overall. Behavioral Audiometry Evaluation tests the function of all parts of the ear. The person being tested must be awake and actively respond to sounds heard during the test.
Infants and toddlers are observed for changes in their behavior such as sucking a pacifier, quieting, or searching for the sound. They are rewarded for the correct response by getting to watch an animated toy (this is called visual reinforcement audiometry). Sometimes older children are given a more play-like activity (this is called conditioned play audiometry).
With the parents’ permission, the audiologist will share the results with the child’s primary care doctor and other experts, such as:
- An ear, nose and throat doctor, also called an otolaryngologist
- An eye doctor, also called an ophthalmologist
- A professional trained in genetics, also called a clinical geneticist or a genetics counselor
For more information about hearing tests, visit the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website.
Get Help!
- If a parent or anyone else who knows a child well thinks the child might have hearing loss, ask the doctor for a hearing screening as soon as possible.
Don’t wait!
- If the child does not pass a hearing screening, ask the doctor for a full hearing test.
- If the child is diagnosed with a hearing loss, talk to the doctor or audiologist about treatment and intervention services.
Hearing loss can affect a child’s ability to develop communication, language, and social skills. The earlier children with hearing loss start getting services, the more likely they are to reach their full potential. If you are a parent and you suspect your child has hearing loss, trust your instincts and speak with your doctor.
Baby Hearing Screening | CDC
The best way to find out if your baby may be deaf or hard of hearing is by a hearing screening. Early diagnosis and intervention will help them reach their full potential.
Thousands of babies are born deaf or hard of hearing each year in the United States. Babies diagnosed early with hearing loss and begin intervention early are more likely to reach their full potential. The best way to find out if your baby may be deaf or hard of hearing is by a simple hearing test, also called a hearing screening.
Why is a hearing screening important for my baby?
Learn more about outcomes associated with early hearing detection and intervention:
Reading Proficiency Trends Following Newborn Hearing Screening Implementation
Frequency of Early Intervention Sessions and Vocabulary Skills in Children with Hearing Loss
Starting from day 1, babies begin to learn language skills by listening to and interacting with those around them. If babies miss these opportunities, their language development can be delayed. Many times, children’s hearing loss is not obvious and can go unnoticed for months or even years.
Hearing screening at birth can determine if your baby may have a hearing loss and if more tests are needed. An early diagnosis is essential to help babies who are deaf or hard of hearing reach their full potential, and allows families to make decisions about the intervention services that are best for their baby’s needs. Early diagnosis of hearing loss and beginning intervention helps to keep children’s development on track and improve their future language and social development.
Your baby probably had a hearing screening
Almost all states, communities, and hospitals now screen newborns for hearing loss before the babies leave the hospital. The hearing screening is easy and painless, and it can determine if more testing is needed. In fact, many babies sleep through the hearing screening, and the test usually takes just a few minutes.
What if my baby did not pass the hearing screening?
Additional testing is the next step to tell if your baby has hearing loss and what type of loss it is. A healthcare professional trained to test hearing, such as an audiologist, will be able to perform more detailed hearing tests. Your baby’s doctor (or an ear, nose, and throat doctor) should perform or order any medical tests needed to find out the cause of the hearing loss.
Making sure your baby gets this additional testing quickly is also important. CDC-funded research shows just how important it is. Children with hearing loss who are identified before 3 months of age, and receive services before 6 months of age, have better vocabularies than those identified or receiving services later. For more information about this research, visit Giving Every Child the Gift of Words
If my baby passed the hearing screening, is everything fine?
Because a newborn baby can pass the hearing screening and still develop a hearing loss later, your baby’s doctor should routinely follow your baby’s general health and development.
For more information, visit CDC’s Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) website.
View large image and text description
Where can I go for help?
Every state has a program that works to help make sure that babies who are deaf or hard of hearing are diagnosed early. If you have any concerns about your baby’s hearing, ask the doctor for a hearing test or screening as soon as possible. To learn more about this topic, you can also call toll free 1-800-CDC-INFO or visit the CDC EHDI Program site.
The Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program works with your state to ensure that all babies are screened for hearing loss and receive any needed follow-up tests and services. CDC’s EHDI program supports the ongoing search for new ways to improve services. To learn more about CDC’s important role in helping children who are deaf and hard of hearing, download a fact sheet [439 KB, 2 Pages, 508] and watch a video in American Sign Language.
Does your child hear?
According to statistics, every year in Russia, out of 1,000 healthy newborns, 1 child is born with total deafness. In children born prematurely, with low body weight, with CNS damage, this figure increases by 20 times. However, today, deafness is not a sentence. The main thing is to notice in time and turn to specialists.
Sometimes, walking down the street, we notice people who are gesticulating, turning towards each other. We pass by without thinking about how these people live in the country of the deaf when the world around you is devoid of all sounds, when you cannot hear the cry of a newborn baby, a declaration of love, words of forgiveness, pleas for help. And how does a little, just born man live in the world without a mother's lullaby, without dad's laughter, without a cat's meow, birds singing? How can he live and develop, deprived of hearing? And, if it seems to you that this trouble will bypass you and your loved ones, then I can upset you, this can happen to anyone. There are risk factors for hearing loss:
Adverse family history:
1. Hearing loss at a young age in at least one of the family members.
Adverse maternal history:
1. Toxicosis of the first half of pregnancy and preeclampsia.
2. Infectious and viral diseases of the mother during pregnancy (rubella, measles, herpes zoster, herpes zoster, cytomegalovirus infection, influenza, mumps, toxoplasmosis and other viral infections).
3. Maternal use of ototoxic drugs during pregnancy.
Unfavorable history of the child's life:
1. Prematurity.
2. Gestational age over 40 weeks.
3. Apgar score at birth 0-3.
4. Birth weight less than 1500 g
5. Neonatal asphyxia
6. Congenital malformations of the maxillofacial skeleton
7. Counted with hearing impairment of the malfunctions of the child
8. Intracranial birth injury
9. The gypoxic-ischemic lesion of the central nervous system
10. The hemolytic disease of the newborn.
11. Hyperbilirubinemia (more than 20 µmol/l).
12. Neonatal meningitis.
13. Treatment with ototoxic drugs
The main thing that every mother should know is that a newborn's hearing is checked at birth. home for 3-4 days. This is for ALL kids. The result must be recorded in the statement: it is: "test passed" or "failed". At this point, in more detail for those who "did not pass the test": dear mothers, it's too early to worry, this does not mean that the child does not hear, it means that you must repeat this test in 1 month at the clinic at the place of residence. There are reasons for not passing this test:
• Sulfur masses (birth lubrication) in the external auditory canal
• Myxoid tissue or exudate in the middle ear
• Damage to the external hair cells
• Test must be done in silence (the test must be performed in silence!)
If, for the second time, the child does not pass the audiological test, he must be sent for an in-depth audiological examination to the audiological center: for children of the Sverdlovsk Region - to the Regional Children's Audiological Center of the MKMC "Bonum". There, experienced specialists will determine the degree of hearing loss, tell your further actions.
Some babies need hearing aids and need to wear them at a certain time: up to 6 months. And it’s not true that everyone around will say that it’s too early, that you need to wait, that hearing aids spoil your hearing and you need to wear them only in extreme cases! You need to listen to the DOCTOR! After all, delay with hearing aid in the first year of life entails a lag in speech development. If the child does not hear sounds, he does not understand speech, so he will not start talking or will start talking later, with significant impairment.
Remember that today's hearing aids are not the outdated hearing aids you saw on your grandparents. Modern hearing aid is:
-
Digital audio processing
-
Setting accuracy
-
Multichannel
-
Programmability
-
Multiprogramming
-
Microphone directivity
-
Acoustic management
-
Acoustic Feedback Suppression
-
Noise Cancellation
But, there is a hearing loss that no even the most powerful hearing aid can help: it's deafness! These are terrible words, they are scary to say to the doctor and scary to hear for mom: your child does not hear. And you understand that the best, most beautiful baby in the world will never become a musician (or a doctor, or an actor). Because he is deaf. Is it possible to convey all the grief and despair that covers parents, grandparents. The main thing is that you are not left alone at this moment. Doctors and teachers of the Regional Children's Audiological Center of the MKMC "Bonum" will help you cope with all the difficulties.
Today, deafness is not a sentence. There is a proven, effective and safe method for the rehabilitation of children with total deafness. This is a cochlear implant.
COCHLEAR IMPLANTATION is a system of measures and technical means aimed at restoring missing physical hearing.
Cochlear Implant Kit consists of two parts: internal and external. Internal (implantable), surgically placed under the scalp and into the cochlea during surgery. The outer part - the speech processor is worn behind the ear or fastened to the baby's clothes.
How does the cochlear implant system work?
1. The microphone picks up sounds around us and transmits them to the speech processor.
2. The speech processor analyzes sounds and encodes them into a sequence of electrical impulses.
3. The transmitter antenna sends these pulses through intact skin to the cochlear implant.
4. The implant transmits electrical impulses to electrodes in the cochlea, where the auditory nerve fibers are stimulated.
5. The auditory nerve receives electrical impulses and sends information to the auditory centers of the brain. The brain recognizes the transmitted signals as sound.
Indications for cochlear implantation
Bilateral deep sensorneal deafness (medium threshold of auditory perception at frequencies of 0.5, 1 and 2 kHz more than 95 dB)
· Thresholds of auditory perception in a free sound field using optimally fitting hearing aids exceeding 55 dB at 2-4 kHz
No significant improvement in auditory perception of speech from the use of optimally fitted hearing aids (in children who have had meningitis, this gap can be reduced)
No cognitive problems
No psychological problems 909003
0 6 No serious physical diseases Readiness of parents for a long postoperative rehabilitation period of classes with audiologists and deaf teachers
Contraindications to cochlear implantation are:
· Complete or partial, but significant, streamlines
· Retro -chloric pathology (damage to the auditory nerve, neurinoma of the auditory nerve, etc. )
diseases (chronic renal failure, decompensated heart disease, etc.)
Intellectual disability
Presence of focal pathology in the cortical or subcortical structures of the brain
Lack of desire to work with a deaf teacher for many years after implantation or lack of support from family members and their readiness for long-term rehabilitation work .
The sooner hearing loss is detected, the sooner a cochlear implant can be performed. If the operation was performed early, before the baby learned to speak, then the child's speech may develop spontaneously, in much the same way as their hearing peers.
The later the operation is done, the more efforts of parents, classes with teachers you will need, the more difficult it is for the child to understand the people around him and learn to speak.
Children are now implanted in their first year of life.
I sincerely believe that several years will pass (for someone 2 years, for someone 3) and your amazing child will come running from the kindergarten and tell you: "Maasya, sya, I'm uncle" which means: "Mommy sit down, I'll give you candy. " And it will be the most pleasant moments of your life. And even though at first only you will understand it, the moment will come when a completely grown-up and beautiful daughter or a smart and strong son, after graduating from school, will kiss you and say in a completely different way: "Thank you for everything, dear mommy." And then you will remember all those people who believed in your strength, who were with you in those difficult first years. So let's become these kind people together and help a deaf child get out of the world of deaf-muteness. Let him hear the world and speak.
Hearing children of deaf parents, unite! – All-Russian Society of the Deaf
August 23, 2016 9831 0 1
On August 2, Muscovites and guests of the capital had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by Arkady Belozovsky on the topic “A hearing child – deaf parents”. The lecture was held at the Moscow House of Public Organizations, near the Ryazansky Prospekt metro station. Despite the hot summer weather in Moscow that day, more than a hundred deaf and hearing spectators gathered in the hall, everyone listened enthusiastically to the deaf speaker from America, who spoke in magnificent Russian sign language. In this article I would like to talk about the lecturer, and most importantly, to highlight in detail the main points of this useful lecture.
Most of our readers are familiar with the name of Arkady Belozovsky. A native of Kharkov, Ukraine, a third-wave emigrant from the USSR to the United States (1986-1999), in the recent past a teacher at the prestigious Brown University, now he is a lecturer who often speaks outside the United States.
The lecture began with a video demonstration of American children and teenagers singing in good sign language: “At first I didn't want to go there, but now I'm here! And I want to cry and rejoice! We are CODA children! We love CODA!” Next, the audience was shown fragments of testimonies of hearing children of deaf parents, who told how the use of a second native language - sign - strengthened their self-confidence and rallied intra-family ties. Arkady Belozovsky introduced CODA to all those present. The international organization CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) - Children of Deaf Parents, was established in 1986 in the USA, and today it exists in many countries of the world; in the UK, for example, it is called Hearing, Father-Mother Deaf. Hearing children of deaf parents (hereinafter referred to as CODA children) are born in families in all countries of the world, and the problems of these families are very similar.
Deaf parents of hearing children. What are they? For the most part, they sacrifice their well-being and sincerely desire to provide their hearing children with a decent life. Deep down they are proud of their child: “He hears, he will be better and more successful than me!” But these parents (especially those born into hearing families) make some big mistakes. Here are some of them: parents, for various reasons, do not teach sign language to their hearing children, depriving themselves of comfortable communication with them in the future. Parents talk to their children in a muffled, chest voice, or vice versa, in a high falsetto, in short, as best they can ... And sometimes they are embarrassed to speak sign language with children. Often this happens under the influence of a ban on the part of hearing relatives, speech therapists, teachers: “Don't wave your hands with him! Your child is normal! Talk to him with your voice! Otherwise, he won’t speak to you even at the age of three!” And their growing children-CODA, without knowing the native language of their father and mother, rather quickly leave for the world of hearing people, inevitably soon losing contact with their parents... But there is another way. From childhood, deaf parents can provide a naturally powerful channel of communication with their hearing children if they communicate in their native language - sign language! In fact, it is not so scary if a CODA child begins to speak with a voice a little later than other children. Will make up later for sure!
Further, the lecturer spoke about other prejudices of deaf parents, listed striking examples when they do not always act correctly towards their hearing children. One of the grossest mistakes is the belief of parents that their child, having matured, must necessarily choose the profession of an interpreter. In fact, it is not correct and not humane to determine in advance and categorically the area of future professional interests of your hearing child. After all, there are many different fields of activity. And the choice of a future profession should still remain with the child himself.
There is another common mistake: deaf parents, under the influence of various factors, often give their children to the upbringing and education of the closest hearing relatives who speak. “You can’t hear how he sleeps at night! You can never be good parents!”. And the child is actually almost forcibly cut off from communication with his deaf parents; grandparents who take their grandchildren to their place raise CODA children at their own discretion, as they see fit. But is it good to take a child away from his own parents?! Sometimes it happens that a child, at the insistence of the same compassionate relatives, is at the disposal of specialists. “He doesn’t speak well, he needs a speech therapist around the clock!” Because of this, the time when a CODA child is next to his mother and father, in the circle of his family, is reduced.
Arkady Belozovsky also talked about the difficulties - or even types of oppression, if you like! is what most deaf parents have to deal with. One example of discrimination is audism (the term was coined in the US over 40 years ago). In Russia, this term is still new. Audiism is the belief that life without hearing is useless and insignificant, that hearing loss itself is a great tragedy, and therefore deaf people should make every possible effort to become like hearing people. Audism is the belief that someone is superior to others because of the ability to hear or act like a hearing person. This point of view is shared by auditors - "interpreters" (translating into CLR), the administration of schools for the deaf, speech therapists, otolaryngologists and other specialists. Audiists are easy to spot by how fundamentally they avoid the culture of the deaf and the use of sign language.
Linguistics (another term used by Belozovsky) is another form of discrimination, when judgments about health, education and social status, and other characteristics of other people are formed on the basis of their language skills. That is, when certain linguistic capabilities of the interlocutor are put at the head of the relationship (the presence or absence of an accent, the vastness or poverty of the vocabulary, the ability or inability to correctly place the stress in a word, the ability to syntactically correctly build a sentence, etc.). Linguistics is a form of prejudice and is on a par with racism, sexism, age discrimination. "Linguists" evaluate a person by his ability to speak other languages, such people are seen by the fact that they tend to take the interlocutor seriously only if he has "a competent written (or oral) language." (For example, someone who speaks, say, Korean is likely to be treated differently in France than someone who speaks French in France. )
Unfortunately, practice shows that deaf people in many countries of the world often become victims of these two types of discrimination. They are often not only unable to resist and defeat these stereotypes of others, but often simply tacitly resign themselves to such an attitude. And in vain! Of course, whatever one may say, much depends on the position of society, on its maturity. Overcoming stereotypes also depends on the internal choice of the deaf themselves. First of all, it would be nice if deaf parents themselves discard harmful stereotypes about themselves, figure out what is important or not important for maintaining ties with their own child! Who will support them in this?
CODA's goal is to help both hearing children and their deaf parents. The organization emphasizes the importance of maintaining the parent-child relationship, and holds many educational conferences and seminars on various topics. Where can parents take their children in their spare time? In what language should you tell fairy tales to your hearing child? What material or spiritual values should be instilled in your child? Deaf parents and hearing children are taught to enjoy socializing and value spending time together, especially when there are always “hostile forces” that prevent this, external or internal.
CODA declares that the most important task of parents is to teach their hearing child to live in two worlds - the big hearing world and the small world of the deaf. CODA children can be beautifully and harmoniously developed bilinguals (or even polyglots if they learn a third or fourth language).
At CODA conferences and workshops, hearing children communicate and sing fluently in sign language. And this is very good! Psychological seminars and trainings, summer schools and camps are held. It is very useful to communicate with children of different ages-CODA, a delicate discussion of personal experience. The autobiographies of such children are published in printed form, filmed on video. In recent years, there has been a real boom in psychological and sociolinguistic research on this issue in the world.
The listeners of Arkady Belozovsky's lecture were struck by the fact that in some countries the state or non-profit organizations, realizing that these problems exist, specifically deal with this issue, create special courses for children and their deaf parents. There, parents are taught not to be afraid of anything, to take their children with them everywhere, to communicate with them in sign language with pleasure. In a word, to live a full life of any normal parent: go fishing, spend family evenings with children at a round table, have picnics, hikes to various interesting places. In CODA clubs, parents learn to raise bilinguals, and bilingual children learn to appreciate and love their deaf parents.
Hearing children of deaf parents (CODA-children) are a phenomenon little studied from social, economic, psychological and other points of view. They exist in any country, but their problems are often hushed up. Many of these children have various psychological traumas. To begin with, from childhood they hear negative statements of unfriendly-minded hearing people around them. The whole world took up arms against their deaf parents: “Your mom and dad are stupid, illiterate, uncultured!”. Of course, not all cases of such verbal and other humiliation are reported by children to their parents. Children do not feel secure, often do not have confidence in themselves, in their future. Further, some CODA children become hypervigilant, worrying greatly for the safety of their deaf parents' lives. What if mom and dad don't hear a train or car signal? What if deaf parents do not have time to orient themselves during the attack? Who will inform them about the need to evacuate the building? ..
CODA children need to be taught what their deaf parents are going through and how they are trying to stand up for their rights. Deaf parents, for example, do not always know how to argue properly (unlike most hearing ones). But that doesn't mean they're bad parents. It's just that the deaf are not taught this, how to properly lead and win an argument. And because they often do not look in the best light. According to hearing “auditing specialists”, deaf parents are either too passive or, on the contrary, too aggressive. They are often said to be unable to deal with their own anger at any injustice. Because of this, the deaf actually automatically fall into the category of the oppressed, they are not always self-confident. (Perhaps any hearing person who comes to the club of the deaf feels just as insecure.)
CODA children often experience isolation and rejection from their hearing peers and feel uncomfortable among them. Pitying their parents, these children, moving away from an open discussion of their problems with them, withdraw into themselves, go further and further away from them. Sometimes a CODA child will suddenly defiantly stop communicating in sign language, and poor parents will switch to lip-reading. Normal family ties are disrupted.
CODA children in childhood are forced to listen to many stupid and tactless questions about the deafness of their parents.
– Wow! So your parents can understand Braille?!
– I once had a deaf dog!..
– Are your parents deaf?! It's so cool... Well, not cool, but...
- What does that mean in sign language? (the interlocutor senselessly twists his hands in front of him).
– Your mother can't drive because she's deaf, right?!
– Tell me something in sign language.
– When people yawn, your parents think they are yawning, right?
The lecturer stressed that in fact CODA children can and should enjoy the benefits of knowing two languages and cultures from “two worlds”. Such children, subject to timely support and the necessary minimum consultation, are able to respond correctly to injustice, show maturity, self-confidence, become responsible and harmoniously developed people. CODA children have the right to study sign language in schools and universities. (By the way, in some countries such an opportunity is provided to them.)
Hearing children are not obliged almost from infancy to defend the rights of their deaf parents, for this there are appropriate structures and services in any legal state - translation service centers, police, parent clubs and committees, governing councils of educational institutions. CODA children can and should report their concerns to their parents. But deaf parents must protect their families, themselves and their children on their own. A child will not be able to grow up normal if he is set against the offenders of his parents from childhood in order to solve all the problems of the family, study, work, etc. A CODA child, like all children, should have a happy childhood. Despite everything.
After the lecturer's speech, two women took the stage - Lyudmila Belyakova and Marina Chernova. It turned out that they are adult hearing children of deaf parents. Both said that they went through a path familiar to many CODA children, and both, thanks to the support of their parents, have become educated and interesting people in society. Lyudmila Belyakova and Marina Chernova highly appreciated the lecture and supported the idea of creating the CODA-Russia organization. This dream is shared by many deaf parents of hearing children in Moscow. It was Muscovites-enthusiasts who helped organize the current lecture of a deaf American in Russia.
