Hearing loss in children
Our ability to hear is an important part of lives, enabling us to learn, socialize and obtain important information about our environment.
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When it functions well, the our hearing sense and the organs that enable us to hear require little care and maintenance, and thus tend to be taken for granted.
Our ability to reach our full potential in life and to get the best start in life depends on our hearing abilities. From birth, we develop languages by distinguishing between meaningful speech, sounds and insignificant noises. Having a hearing loss reduces these skills.
Today it is known that auditory stimulation in the first few months and early years of childhood are critical to the development of auditory pathways in the brain, and to language / speech development. Thus early diagnosis and intervention are critical part of the care of children with hearing loss. Many Western countries have now adapted universal new born hearing screening programmes, UNHS, to facilitate the early diagnosis of hearing loss.
As many as 7 out of every 1000 newborns in the United States have some level of hearing loss, making hearing loss the number one birth defect in the United States. The incidence of hearing loss is much higher in Africa where congenital rubella and other infectious diseases such as malaria, meningitis and measles add to the toll of early childhood hearing loss.
Found out more about:
- Signs of hearing loss in children
- Causes of hearing loss in children
- Accepting that your child has a hearing loss