Hearing Tests For Children

Hearing tests for children are an essential way of determining whether your child suffers from some kind of hearing impairment; once hearing impairment is determined, the child can receive the help he or she needs to live a normal life. It is never too early to test a child for hearing impairment; indeed, nowadays newborns are screened for hearing impairments a few days after they are born and before leaving the hospital. A child will most likely have to visit an audiologist several times for his or her hearing loss to be adequately determined.

The specific type of test used on a child will depend on his or her age, health status, and developmental level. Children can be tested by using either behavioral tests or electrophysiologic tests. The first type of test consists of the audiologist observing the child’s behavioral response to certain sounds; behaviors can include things like eye movements or head turning. The second type of test is used when behavioral tests are inadequate to gather information; this happens if the child is very young or has some kind of handicap that affects behavioral responses. Electrical waves of the auditory system are analyzed and compared to standards; these kinds of test technically estimate hearing function and are not exact measurements of a child’s hearing abilities.

Between birth and the age of six months, it is common to have a child undergo an auditory brainstem response test (ABR), an electrophysiologic test that analyzes the brainstem’s response to sound. An infant is sedated and headphones are placed over his or her head; clicking sounds are presented to the infant and the brainstem response to the sounds is detected using electrodes placed on the head. The volume of the sound is gradually decreased until brainstem response is 0 and this gives an estimate of the infant’s hearing level.

Another physiological test that can be used in the first six months is otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), which examines the function of the inner ear. When hearing is normal or near normal, a sound entering the ear will create a measurable echo. If hearing is not normal, this echo may be distorted or not present at all. One problem with this test is that the echo may be absent even in cases of an ear infection, where the child’s hearing is otherwise normal.

A pediatric audiologist may choose to perform a behavioral observation assessment (BOA), which consists in the detection of bodily or behavioral responses to sound; these responses can range from a widening of the eyes to a change in the rate of sucking. In very young children, though, this test is not reliable enough to be the only indication of hearing level. As children get older, these behavioral tests become the preferred testing method.