Hearing loss in infants

My two youngest daughters have moderate to severe hearing loss. Both passed their new born hearing screening beformed at the hospital a day or two after thhy were born. My 4 YO was diagnosed in April (at age 4) only after I brought up concerns about her speech, wanting to listen to the TV very loud, saying “what?” a lot, and behavior problems that I just could not get an handle on. I had been askign about her hearing for almost a year but everyone kept telling me I was ‘projecting’, ‘imagining things’ or ‘being paranoid’ because of my own hearing loss. After she was diagnosed, I insisted that they test teh baby too. She was 9 months old when her hearing loss was confirmed. There were absolutely no red flags with her as she was on track developmentally.

What I have learned since is that there were a few things that may have been an indicator. Neither of my girls ever babbled in repetitive consanant sounds on their own (“dadadada, bababababa”). They babbled, but in vowel sounds that varied (“ahhhh, eeeeee, ahhhh, ohhhh”). After learning about their hearing loss, this made sense b/c they couldn’t hear the consanants as well as the vowels. Also, because they do have some residual hearing, they reacted to sounds. Some parents think that b/c the baby jumps when they drop a book or something, then there is nothing to worry about, but that may not be the case. My daughters don’t have enough hearing unaided to get good access to speech sounds.

Another kind of weird coincidence that I have heard from a few other parents of children with hearing loss: from about 6 months through about 10 months, my girls hated being in the car at night. When the lights were out in the car, they screamed the entire time. I had to drive with the lights on inside the car to keep them from becoming almost hysterical. I don’t know for sure if this is something hearing realted or not, but my hearing son never was bothered by it. I think they didn’t like not being able to see what was going on around them when they were old enough to realize there was a world out there.

Thanks for the response. Its a good thing you listened to your gut instinct and ignored people’s comments on being paranoid and overreacting. When it comes to your children, you can never be too safe and cautious.

@Venster said:

Thanks for the response. Its a good thing you listened to your gut instinct and ignored people’s comments on being paranoid and overreacting. When it comes to your children, you can never be too safe and cautious.

I agree with your thoughts! I hope that we can have more discussion.

In my opinion, having a newborn tested for hearing loss is paramount. However, this happens to be one of the most neglected health concerns for children. Thus, hearing screening is critical before it is too late for you to discover that your newborn suffers from hearing loss. Audiologists recommend that newborn hearing test should be conducted regularly to prevent hearing loss. Signs of hearing loss in infants vary by age. For example: A newborn baby with hearing loss may not startle when a loud noise sounds nearby. Older infants, who should be responding to familiar voices, may show no reaction when spoken to.

@DianaS said:

As a pediatrician for 30 years I’ve learned one thing - if mom says something is wrong, 99 out of a hundred times she is right.
I don’t know of any prenatal tests for hearing loss. Newborn screening is just that, testing if the newborn hears. For high risk children, and that includes those who have a parent with hearing loss (unless it’s due to known injury or infection) I order formal audiology every 6 to 12 months until they go to school.
Once a child is diagnosed with hearing loss, they become eligible for a variety of state programs such as speech therapy, special ed and often assistive devices, ie hearing aids. Unfortunately it often takes a very persistent annoying parent to get the services their child is entitled to.

I would refrain from special ed or LD class unless they actually have developmental issues. This is the classic deaf and dumb attitude.

appropriate program for child with hearing loss is the hearing impaired program. This is where speech development, word recognition or sign language learning takes place. Along with one on one to cover the other classes in which they might have missed what the teacher was actually saying so as not to fall behind the other kids due to things not being heard.

just because they can’t hear doesn’t mean they are stupid. they tested my IQ in pre school it was solid 80 it was 80 because of my hearing.

3rd grade i didn’t know any math at all, Then a teacher in a LD class used flash cards to teach me math in that it was visual and not auditory. In less than a month I went from NO MATH to being caught up in math at the same level as other normal hearing 3rd grade students. They then placed me in reg math class with the other normal NON developmentally challenged. It doesn’t matter that it was in a LD class that the flash card technique was discovered. The point of it was that the flashcard bypassed auditory and used my eyes to hear instead of my ears. modern hearing impaired programs uses a LOT OF FLASH CARDS.

The reason I was in LD was the attitude deaf and dumb, which was entirely wrong for me. Advance to 11th grade I tested completely out of the LD program officially. We did the testing and it was timed, many areas I was getting all or almost all the answers right except for spelling and vocabulary. The areas that I was getting all right we logged at the time indicated , but because I was getting all the questions right we decided to see how far I could go before getting 3-4 answers wrong in a row to see what my actual level was. lone behold those areas were all level 4th year college or higher. Remind you I was in 11th grade. Only reason it wasn’t officially recorded was because of the stupid time limit rule. Some times the smartest people are not the fastest, look at one of our smartest men on earth, being confined to a chair and barely moves.

Point is Don’t assume developmental issues unless that is actually what it is, like not being able to pick up a fork is an example of developmental issues.

If you treat a child as inferior because they can’t hear they will actually become infirior in that they are not taught to their potential level.

I was coined as an “EXTREME” under achiever in my school file the extreme was actually capitalized and underlined. If I had been properly placed, and taught properly, I could have reached my true potential of the extremely gifted.

So please don’t ever assume LD class or especially special ed in that special ed is for the developmentally challenged children that have actual defective brain function. Honestly hearing loss in my book IS NOT A BRAIN MALFUNCTION. unless its the part of the brain that interprets sound signal from the nerve that is malfunctioning.

so anything up to nerve is just that hearing loss nothing else.

The hearing impaired program did a better job with my dyslexia that LD ever could achieve. I didn’t learn much of anything in LD. It was a true wasted time for me.

parents if your community doesn’t have a hearing impaired program MOVE to one that does. Unless there is obvious mental development issues like say downs syndrome. Or problems with reasoning like problems with puzzle solving. I found that puzzle solving is a good way to know if developmentally challenged or simply having hearing loss. In that shape puzzles relies entirely on eyesight bypassing any issues with audio. it tests cognitive function.

One thing I never fully understood though is WHY THE INSISTENCE ON BEING TIMED. Just because one kid can do it faster than another doesn’t nessarily mean that the slower kid has problems. Hell they over looked my potential by time limiting me. With hearing loss, and (dyslexia and short term memory) related issues I still managed to place top 1/5 of NORMAL students. Almost graduated as honor student. Only reason didn’t graduate in honor society is NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL ME IT EXISTED! I didn’t cheat at all, yet I was same level as cheating honor students.(once I knew who the honor students were I noted they were all passing answers back and forth behind the teachers back on tests.) That honestly boiled my blood in that they were the so called cream of the crop destined for future leadership. All they were, were immoral, lying, corrupt, cheaters.

The newborn hearing screen and the other tests for babies are pretty good at finding profoundly deaf children, but can be poor at finding the others. The milds and moderates will often sail through hearing screening because it’s a screening programme, they are looking for pass/fail, and they are mostly looking for deaf children, not HoH ones. Children with mild losses usually pass. These children can often get through early audiometry testing because they get into a pattern of looking at the “reward” just to see if it’s there, and it happens to coincide with the beeps sometimes. The children are also not so hot at following instructions, so if they are to do something with a toy when they hear a beep they may well lose track of what is going on and just do it anyway. It takes lots of repeat testing to get a final result for children in between normal hearing and severe loss, as they are responsive but something is not quite right. Some children will give consistent responses easily, other children will fight the testing every step of the way, including my own daughter’s famous “45 minutes under a table” hearing test appointment. Which, for the record, audiology counted as showing “normal hearing” even though they didn’t manage to coax her into doing anything at all.

Signs of hearing loss: Speech is usually late, they can be very upset by a parent being out of eye sight as they cannot hear the parent is in the other room. Need to be really nearby to offer comfort to the baby. While you are getting testing done assume the child is deaf and support sound with visual cues. Babies’ hearing needs are at least not terribly complex (though access to sound is still incredibly important, importance and complexity shouldn’t be confused) since most people who speak to babies do so from a few feet away, but once a child starts to walk their needs become more complex as they need to hear over greater distances and from more angles. Alternate snuggling the baby tight into your chest for a nice cuddle with holding face to face and letting the baby look at your facial expressions, make lots of interesting faces. Get some sign if possible, you don’t need to become fluent in BSL/ASL overnight, but it helps children work out why on earth all these people around them keep flapping their mouths about if the communication becomes meaningful in a way they can access. Do play with sound, you don’t know what level of residual hearing a baby has, especially in losses which don’t cover all frequencies, so do line up a lot of stuff that can be hit, squeaked, bashed together, etc. to make a lot of lovely noises. All but the very deafest babies will still respond to sound on some level, and these things will also make exciting vibrations and gratifying kinaesthetic feedback when hit.

Hi all
Not a lot different in the UK.
I as an audiologist (private) met a distressed mother worried about her daughters hearing. The Doctors wouldn’t take her concerns seriously and so wouldn’t send the child to ENT. I tested the girls hearing, proved a hearing loss and the mother gave the results to her GP and the girl was referred…what a faf.
If you or your child is suspected of a hearing loss, try
online-hearing-test.co.uk34
it’s the best Iv’e come accross so far

LOL I’ve been there since I was an infant so I’ve worn hearing aids at 6 months old.