Too young for hearing aids

ksinclair · September 2012

Hello everyone. I have a 4 month old baby girl. She had the newborn hearing screening in the hospital and referred both ears twice. A month later we went and had a more detailed test done at ENT. 3 hours later we left there with nothing because the audiologist didn't know what they were doing. We found another place to go a month later and had tests done again. We got results but they wanted us to come back to see if we could get better results and information. So a few weeks later we went again. We were told that Leah has a mild hearing loss in both ears. She can hear up to 40 decibels. But with higher frequencies it gets slightly worse.

I should say that my husband has kind of the same hearing loss. It wasn't discovered until her was 4 or 5 though. He wore hearing aids and just had a bad experience with them. He stopped wearing them after middle school and he gets by without them very well! His mother worked with him on articulating what he and she were saying. He also did some speech therapy.

Leah's doctors suggest that we get her hearing aids. My husband thinks she is too young to get them. I am in between and am unsure.

She "talks" so much! She is very visual and always has been, but if she didn't talk so much I would be getting her hearing aids. Right now I feel that she is doing well with hearing. Her speech at 4 months is just fine. She is doing great with reaching all of her milestones.

Is there anyone out there that can relate to this? Anyone choose not to get hearing aids?

Assembly_Reqd · September 2012

Our son, Nate has worn hearing aids since he was 3 months old. His hearing level is mild- moderate.

We chose to aid him because his loss is right in the range for speech so we didn't want him missing ending of words and have an articulation problem later.

I understand you husbands experience was not positive but this is not an excuse in my opinion to not allow your child full access to all spoken sounds. We were told by our audiologist to be prepared if Nate chooses not the wear hearing aids once he hits school age in he is mainstreamed. That is fine with us if he chooses that. Right now we want to prevent any further speech problems by giving him full access now.

There is no way to know right now how you Childs hearing levels will affect speech. If you have resources to get aids get them. She will become used to them and will at least get4 to 5 years of access to how spoken English is supposed to sound if she chooses to not wear them later.

Also, you have no way of knowing if this is a progressive loss or a stable one. It is much easier to get a baby to get used to hearing aids rather than a toddler or Pre-schooler.

Good luck with what you decide.

kac831 · September 2012

I will give you a biased opinion, because I am an Audiologist....

First of all I am sorry you are going through this, its hard to make decisions like this for only a 4 month old. That said, so much has changed since your husband was a small child as far as research on early intervention and effects of hearing loss and hearing aid technology. It will be very difficult to compare your husband's experience because there were very different views on hearing aids and effects of hearing loss then.

Current research very much encourages and has proven the earlier you aid a child with hearing loss, the better their over all speech and language development will be. Even a child with mild to moderate hearing loss is missing out on a huge range of speech. Have you seen an audiogram with a graph of the speech banana showing you where her hearing loss falls against the speech sounds? Even a mild to moderate hearing loss can sound like you are walking around with cotton in your ears. Sure she will hear louder sounds, but why would you want her to struggle and not hear everything she could?

If you have not read statistics on overall language, development, reading and language scores through out school of kids with hearing loss , you should. It is scary how much hearing loss can impact kid's learning. Starting them early and giving them all the resources available can help them from falling far behind their peers.

It is much easier to start out an infant wearing hearing aids, getting her used to them in ears and behind her ears then starting them on a two year old who will pull them out every 2 seconds..

If you child needed glasses would you say "oh well, they can't see that well but it's not that big of a deal she can see some"?

You refer to her "talking" ... all babies babble, even deaf babies. "talking" at 4 months old means absolutely nothing in how much a baby can hear.

She may appear to "hear" you right now, and you're right she does.. just not has clearly as she should. At 4 months she is responding to your overall actions, your gestures, your smile, a loud excited noise she will react too or louder speech, but when she is older and you're whispering in her ear that you love her, you want her to hear " i love you" and not sounding like it's going through cotton.

I think you need to have a serious discussion with your husband that times have changed, and he is lucky he did not have any more serious developmental issues. It's not worth the chance to take with your child when there are resources readily available.

I hope this helps and let me know if you have any questions!

ksinclair · October 2012

Thank you for the responses. As a first time mom, I didn't realize deaf babies also babble... it sounds funny to say, but I didn't. People have told me that she talks so much, that it's hard to believe she has any type of hearing loss. I have wrote down many good points to point out to my husband. I don't want to regret not getting her hearing aids now.

" but when she is older and you're whispering in her ear that you love her, you want her to hear " i love you" and not sounding like it's going through cotton. "

This makes me sad to think she wouldn't hear me or understand me. I thank God though every day that she is still such a healthy baby. I remind myself that things could be much worse.

Emerson2007 · October 2012

My son was in aids by 4 months as well. He was tested as a mild hearing loss, and is now mild-to-moderatley severe. His speech worsened a little, but then balanced back out. Also, it easier to get more accurate results as they get older. I strongly encourage you to aid your child. So much of their speech (for life) is learned before they are 5! They can do so much more now, than in the past and even hearing aids are smaller than when your husband had them. Also, when their ears stop growing as much during adolescent age, they may have the option of an In-the Ear hearing aid that might not even be seen! Not to mention the new technology in 10 years....My son has great speech, but even with all of the speech therapy, ENT visits, special ed, and hearing aids, there are still some sounds that are difficult for him to pronounce. A mild loss also does not necessarily correlate with good speech. It depends on the child and the access to hearing the sound. A child with a higher loss may speak better than one with a mild loss depending on the intervention and therapy. I agree with all of the other advice given to you. Please go for the hearing aids! You will not regret it, but you may regret it if you don't.

Want a personalized experience?

Too young for hearing aids

Re: Too young for hearing aids

Choose Another Board

Search Boards