Paediatric Audiology : Hearing Loss in Children

Paediatric Audiology

Hearing Loss in children is very common. Some may have hearing loss due to wax deposition or may be due to middle ear infection or may be sensory or neural. Whatever the reason be, an untreated hearing loss can have adverse affect of speech and language development, cognitive skills, social interactions and academic skills. The branch of audiology that deals with hearing loss in children is known as paediatric audiology and professional practicing it, is called paediatric audiologist.

Though paediatric audiologist has similar qualifications as of any audiologist but his/her experience in dealing with children is much more than the general audiologist.

Why do we need a specialized audiologist to deal with our child?

There can be the following reasons that your child need a specialized audiologist for your child:

1. Most of the audiologists who deal with adult population are proficient in doing subjective hearing testing but may not have similar expertise in doing electrophysiological testing like BERA, OAE, ASSR and specialized subjective tests like Free-field audiometry, VRA etc. This may lead to be mis-interpretation of results and may lead to wrong treatment procedures.

2. Children are so small and sensitive that they need extra care and appropriate environment for audiological testing.

3. Selection of audiological treatment and procedure is slightly different in adults as they have already developed speech and language and they don't need any further rehabilitation. But in children, due to hearing loss there might be other developmental issue, speech and language development is one of them. So, it is much more important to select and design appropriate treatment process so that it helps the child to overcome all the hindrances occurred due to hearing loss.

4. Most of the time, adults don't need any auditory rehabilitation but children always require auditory rehabilitation for a longer duration of time. So they need special skill sets.

5. There are no fixed hearing tests for children of all ages. Depending on the age and cognitive skills of the child, the audiologist will decide the type of test battery that need to be performed.

6. Time is a special concern for children, as the success of the treatment lies in the early identification and early treatment of the problem. So it is always suggested that parents must visit the paediatric audiologist as soon as possible, rather than experimenting at different audiology clinics.

Our team of Paediatric Audiology is well experienced, trained and competent to perform all paediatric hearing testing best suited to the age of the child.

Our Audiologists:

1. Mr. Lovedeep Kholia, M.Sc Audiology: Experience 15+ years

2. Ms. Niyati Chopra, MASLP: Experience 15+ years

3. Ms. Zara Anwor, BASLP: Experience 3+ years.

For more information, call +91-9716088173 or email us at unicareshc@gmail.com