Children's Hearing Aids

Statistics show that at least 3% of all children in the world suffer from some kind of hearing impairment. Whatever level of hearing loss a child may have, this kind of impairment could affect a child’s education, his or her ability to socialize properly and could have profound effects on his or her future.

With these statistics and the knowledge of the serious consequences associated with hearing impairment in children, manufacturers offer a variety of children’s hearing aids. Obviously, before any decisions are made, a child should be evaluated by a hearing specialist in order to determine the child’s degree of hearing impairment and all appropriate approaches to deal with the hearing impairment.

Children’s hearing aid models are essentially the same as adult models. There are digital hearing aids for children, traditional analog, programmable, completely in the ear canal or behind the ear. The difficulty in fitting children with hearing aids, especially very young children, is that they cannot be expected to adjust their own devices and so any device used for children must be able to be easily monitored and adjusted by either a specialist or the child’s parents/caregivers.

Some children are born with hearing impairments and even children less than a month old can receive hearing aids. Children this young, though, cannot adequately respond to many types of tests to determine the degree of hearing impairment. Physicians will use certain types of tests to determine degree of impairment as best as possible; once a child gets older, though, other tests can be administered to fine tune hearing aid settings. This means that children hearing aids must be able to be adjusted for frequency response and ranges and amount of amplification with relative ease.

Besides having to deal with issues of hearing impairment, there is the added difficulty in children of having to deal with changing ear shape due to natural growth processes. Ear molds on hearing aids for kids will have to be changed with frequent visits to the audiologist. You must also keep in mind that children must often connect their hearing aid to assistive listening systems at home to do their homework, for example. Hearing aids for children must be equipped with the features, such as a telecoil and direct audio input capability, which the child must use to connect to their assistive listening devices.

Given all this information on hearing aids for kids, the behind the ear hearing aid is the most recommended model for children. It can accommodate various types of ear molds, which can be easily removed and reconstructed for each new hearing aid a child will need. It is relatively easy to handle and monitor and controls can be easily checked and manipulated by parents. It provides children with a wide range of volume increases and frequency responses and can deal with a range of hearing impairment levels. Very importantly, it can be made with both a direct audio input and a telecoil. They’re also sturdier and can be child-proofed better.