Department of Audiology Faculty Articles

Technology for Baby's Ear. A Range of Options is Available for Checking and Improving Your Child's Hearing

ORCID

0000-0001-6770-4377

Publisher

Hearing Health Foundation

Publication Date

Winter 2011

Keywords

audiology, babies, communication development, congenital hearing loss, language development

Abstract

Excerpt

Every year, roughly two to three babies out of every thousand healthy newborns are diagnosed with hearing loss, and another two to three per thousand children are diagnosed with hearing loss before kindergarten. The incidence of hearing loss for infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is almost 10 times as high. This is part because premature babies are born before the organs are fully developed, including those involved with hearing, and they are more prone to complications overall. In addition, some NICU babies are given gentamicin or other ototoxic medications, which can result in a higher incidence of hearing loss.

Early identification of hearing loss is vitally important. Congenital hearing loss not only interferes with communication development and language acquisition, it can also result in across-the-board developmental problems. A baby's emotional and social progress can affected.

Volume

27

Issue

1

First Page

20

Last Page

25

Disciplines

Communication Sciences and Disorders | Medicine and Health Sciences | Speech and Hearing Science | Speech Pathology and Audiology

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