Tips for Parents About Childhood Hearing Loss

In early childhood, our sense of hearing plays a crucial role, providing the basis for speech and communication skills. If a hearing impairment is not diagnosed and treated at an early stage, this can have a negative impact on a child's personal development as well as educational, social and professional opportunities throughout life. Given this, it's critical that parents are able to recognize the signs of possible hearing loss early and take appropriate action quickly.
For young children, every day is a journey of discovery; using their five senses, they are continuously gaining impressions and constantly learning new things. If one of their sensory organs is damaged, this can have an adverse effect on their development as a whole, as is demonstrated particularly by the loss of the ability to hear.
"Only through hearing and imitating speech can children adapt their articulation, discover the meanings of words and ultimately learn how to construct sentences," explains Christine Jones, Au.D., CCC-A, Director of Pediatric Clinical Research at Phonak. "Generally, a child with normal development will acquire a basic command of language by the age of three or four."
However, children with untreated hearing impairment don't perceive auditory stimuli to a sufficient extent or fail to respond to them at all. This will severely delay their language acquisition and may even prevent them from ever learning to speak. Deficiencies at this stage of development are extremely difficult to overcome later on. Children affected by this often experience problems with interpersonal communication and feel socially isolated.
"That's why it is so important to ensure that hearing loss in young children doesn't go unnoticed for a long period of time," said Dr. Jones. "The goal is to provide appropriate amplification to children with hearing loss by six months of age. This treatment, along with medical and therapeutic care can help children develop at an appropriate rate for their age."
How can parents tell if their child cannot hear very well?If a child responds unusually slowly to acoustic stimuli or fails to react at all – when being spoken to from outside his or her field of vision, for example – or does not seem frightened by sudden loud noises such as a door slamming, this could be an early sign of hearing loss. Parents should also investigate the possibility of hearing impairment if they notice that their child is learning to speak at a much slower rate than other children of the same age or stops uttering any sounds. Another possible indication is monotonous babbling or when a young child produces a more limited variety of sounds than his or her peers.
What can be done to help children with hearing loss?If parents suspect that their child has a hearing impairment, they should consult a pediatrician, an Ear-Nose &Throat specialist or a pediatric audiologist immediately. Hearing loss can be treated in various ways depending on the type and severity of the impairment:

• In many cases, hearing aids designed especially for children with a diagnosed hearing loss offer significant benefit. The correct hearing aid must be chosen individually for each child and will depend on various factors such as the degree of hearing loss and the needs of the child. Hearing aids are fitted individually by a pediatric audiologist.
• Wireless radio systems, known as personal FM systems, can also be used to supplement hearing aids. The system includes a microphone worn by the child's parent or teacher and a receiver fitted onto the child's hearing aid. This system enables the child to clearly understand speech even over further distances or in situations with loud background noise.

If a hearing aid does not offer sufficient help, a cochlear implant (CI) may be an effective choice. Generally speaking, children who are one year old and older with the auditory nerve intact may be candidates for this surgical implant device.
"Other support such as speech and/or music therapy should also be considered as means to help young children's speech development at a rate appropriate for their age. This can also enhance the children's verbal and communication skills," explained Dr. Jones.
Useful tips for parents of children with hearing loss

• Parents should treat their children as normally as possible.
• Parents should speak as clearly as possible, maintain eye contact with their child when speaking, and teach their child to always look at the person talking to them. If the child does not understand everything they say, they should repeat what they said using different words.
• Even at a very young age, children should be encouraged to ask if there is anything they have not understood correctly.
• Parents should make sure that background noise is kept to a minimum when speaking to their child.
• If parents read picture books to young children, they should bring the pictures to life with sounds as well as reading the text provided (e.g., imitating animal noises). This will enable children to imitate sounds and learn from an early stage how to participate verbally in communal reading.

SOURCE Hear the World Foundation

Phonak Audeo Q: For Tinnitus

Optimum hearing and understanding in any situation best describes the quality of hearing that most wearers expect from a hearing device. With Phonak Audeo Q, wearers can enjoy conversations in crowded restaurants or during a walk outside on a windy afternoon. Unique Binaural VoiceStream Technology^TM found in all of the Phonak Quest products makes it possible for wearers to hear and understand in the most challenging listening situations.

Phonak Audeo Q: a simple and discreet solution
Daily activities like conversations in a busy restaurant or on a noisy street can quickly turn into a challenge for people even with mild to moderate hearing loss. Phonak Audeo Q offers a discreet and unobtrusive solution that enables more signal, less noise and better understanding in even more listening situations. The Audeo Q model is extremely small and designed to practically disappear behind the ear.
Tinnitus management
Because four out of five people with tinnitus are also affected by hearing loss, Phonak Audeo Q is now available with a dedicated Phonak tinnitus program that supports a variety of tinnitus management philosophies.
Tinnitus is defined as the perception of sound in the absence of an external sound source. Shorter episodes of ear noise that go away are considered normal and experienced by many people. Tinnitus sounds, however, are described in many various ways including the sound of crickets, wind, dripping water, buzz of fluorescent lights, pulsating tones, hissing, buzzing or ringing in the ear and typically last more than five minutes at a time.
"Approximately 50 million people in the United States have tinnitus and a quarter of those experience depression, loss of concentration, sleep problems and loss of enjoyment of life," explained Ann L. Rhoten, AuD, Owner of Kentucky Audiology and Tinnitus Services. "Historically, people suffering with tinnitus have been told they have to 'learn to live with it.' "While currently there isn't a cure, there are treatments such as the Phonak tinnitus management program that can help.
"The Phonak Audeo Q incorporates a tinnitus management feature in the hearing aid which offers a library of sounds and music specially designed to help manage tinnitus. These tools, combined with experienced counseling can be very effective in treating tinnitus," said Dr. Rhoten.

Source: Phonak

Can iPods cause hearing loss?

Free hearing tests for Canadian students

Students across Canada are being encouraged to test their hearing as part of MED-EL's national "Hearing to Excel" campaign to raise awareness around the growing health issue of hearing loss in Canada.
Timed to coincide with the new academic school year, the Hearing to Excel campaign is being led by MED-EL, a pioneer in the hearing space and provider of hearing implant systems worldwide, in partnership with VOICE for Hearing Impaired Children, one of the largest parent support organizations for families of children with hearing loss.
Canadian students of primary age will receive the opportunity to test their hearing using MED-EL's free online hearing test, an advanced, research-based test developed to assess speech and hearing abilities within minutes. In addition, all participants in the Hearing to Excel program will receive insights and advice from leading Canadian audiologists on how to protect their hearing.
"Hearing loss among young people in particular is a growing concern today amid the dramatic proliferation of mobile and home audio technology and we are thrilled to be bringing hearing health to the forefront and empowering children to take a more active role that will enhance their development and learning," said Lori Nikkel, executive director of VOICE. "Children with undiagnosed hearing loss face a tremendous risk in how well they reach their full potential academically, socially and emotionally. In many cases children are misdiagnosed as having learning disabilities or behavioural problems, so hearing tests are a crucial step in identifying problems that can be missed."
Studies show that hearing loss can impair development and academic achievement. According to Statistics Canada, 13 per cent of children (up to age 14) have some form of hearing disability that can hinder speech and language development and learning.
Noise induced hearing loss has been on the rise and damaging noise exposure has been identified as a major cause in children and teenagers.  One study by Harvard Medical School researchers, for example, found that one in five teenagers now have some degree of hearing loss - an increase of 30% compared to the early 1990s.
"Early testing and detection of hearing impairment is crucial to educational success and we are urging everyone to take part in the Hearing to Excel program," said Nikkel.
The MED-EL online hearing test which will help parents identify potential hearing issues in their children is being made available free of charge at:  http://www.medel.com/ca/hearing-test/.
In addition to the test, VOICE representatives and leading audiologists will be visiting schools in Toronto, Montreal, and Surrey, B.C. throughout September and during October, which is Learning Disabilities Awareness month. They will share an interactive hearing experience with students to demonstrate the impact of hearing loss and reinforce the importance of hearing health.  Children will have the opportunity to understand how hearing works, how they can protect their hearing and why hearing is so important when it comes to learning and excelling in life.
"Hearing loss is tied to many communication and developmental issues that can affect learning. By reaching students and providing them with the resources that they need to protect their health, we are arming our youth for a healthier and more successful future," said MED-EL co-founder Dr. Ingeborg Hochmair. "Our partnership with VOICE provides an excellent opportunity to educate Canadians about the growing issue of hearing loss and how to protect our invaluable sense of hearing."
More information about the MED-EL online hearing test is available at http://www.medel.com/ca/hearing-test/.  For parents with children under seven, MED-EL offers SoundScape to sharpen a child's listening through fun, interactive games at www.medel.com/resources-for-success-soundscape/.

Hearing Loss Simulation

Spouse's voice easier to hear, harder to ignore

With so many other competing voices, having a conversation on a bustling subway or at a crowded cocktail party takes a great deal of concentration. New research suggests that the familiar voice of a spouse stands out against other voices, helping to sharpen auditory perception and making it easier to focus on one voice at a time.

“Familiar voices appear to influence the way an auditory ‘scene’ is perceptually organized,” explains lead researcher Ingrid Johnsrude of Queen’s University, Canada.

Johnsrude and her colleagues asked married couples, ages 44-79, to record themselves reading scripted instructions out loud. Later, each participant put on a pair of headphones and listened to the recording of his or her spouse as it played simultaneously with a recording of an unfamiliar voice.

On some trials, participants were told to report what their spouse said; on other trials, they were supposed to report what the unfamiliar voice said. The researchers wanted to see whether familiarity would make a difference in how well the participants understood what the target voice was saying.

The results, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show a clear benefit of listening to the familiar voice.

Participants tended to be much more accurate on the task when they had to listen to their spouse’s voice compared to an unfamiliar voice matched on both age and sex — they perceived their spouse’s voice more clearly. Furthermore, accuracy didn’t change as participants got older when they were listening to their spouse’s voice.

“The benefit of familiarity is very large,” Johnsrude notes. “It’s on the order of the benefit you see when trying to perceptually distinguish two sounds that come from different locations compared to sounds that come from the same location.”

But when participants were asked to report the unfamiliar voice, age-related differences emerged.

Middle-aged adults seemed to be relatively adept at following the unfamiliar voice, especially when it was masked by their spouse’s voice — that is, they were better at understanding the unfamiliar voice when it was masked by their spouse’s voice compared to when it was masked by another unfamiliar voice.

“The middle-aged adults were able to use what they knew about the familiar voice to perceptually separate and ignore it, so as to hear the unfamiliar voice better,” Johnsrude explains.

But performance on these trials declined as the participants went up in age — the older the participant was, the less able he or she was to report correctly what the unfamiliar voice was saying.

“Middle-age people can ignore their spouse — older people aren’t able to as much,” Johnsrude concludes.

The researchers suggest that as people age, their ability to use what they know about voices to perceptually organize an auditory ‘scene’ may become compromised.

While this may make it more difficult for older adults to pick out an unfamiliar voice, it has an interesting consequence: The relative benefit of having a familiar voice as the target actually increases with age.

“These findings speak to a problem that is very common amongst older individuals — difficulty hearing speech when there is background sound,” Johnsrude says. “Our study identifies a cognitive factor — voice familiarity — that could help older listeners to hear better in these situations.”

Ear Gear to Protect Your Hearing Aids

Are Earbuds Killing Your Hearing?

Fruit fly ideal model to study human hearing

University of Iowa researchers say that the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an ideal model to study hearing loss in humans caused by loud noise. The reason: The molecular underpinnings to its hearing are roughly the same as with people.

As a result, scientists may choose to use the fruit fly to quicken the pace of research into the cause of noise-induced hearing loss and potential treatment for the condition, according to a paper published this week in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"As far as we know, this is the first time anyone has used an insect system as a model for NIHL (noise-induced hearing loss)," says Daniel Eberl, UI biology professor and corresponding author on the study.

For more, follow this link.

Source: Science Daily

How does noise damage the ear?

Your mother was right when she warned you that loud music could damage your hearing, but now scientists have discovered exactly what gets damaged and how. In a research report published in the September 2013 issue of The FASEB Journal, scientists describe exactly what type of damage noise does to the inner ear, and provide insights into a compound that may prevent noise-related damage.
To find out more, follow the link to Science Daily.

 

Listen and Talk: Helping children with hearing loss

How FM systems can change your hearing experience

Tinnitus despair

Did Bieber concert cause girl's hearing loss?

New insights into sound processing

A healthy ear is much better at detecting and transmitting sound than even the most advanced hearing aid. But now researchers reporting in the August 20 issue of the Biophysical Journal, a Cell Press publication, have uncovered new insights into how the ear -- in particular, the cochlea -- processes and amplifies sound. The findings could be used for the development of better devices to improve hearing.

To read more, follow this link.
Source: Science Daily

Tinnitus treatment by Starkey

A quarter of Aussies could be deaf in 20 years

AUSTRALIANS are damaging their ears to such an extent that up to a quarter of the population will be hearing-impaired within 20 years, says a leading expert.

The main problems are an ageing population and the overall increased loudness of the modern environment, says Associate Professor Robert Cowan, CEO of Hearing Cooperative Research Centre.

He says people should think about noise damage in a similar way to sunburn. A combination of how loud, how long and how often. In addition, significant numbers of soldiers returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have permanent ear damage, says Prof Cowan, who is speaking at the University of Melbourne on Tuesday.

The talk ahead of Hearing Awareness Week is part of the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital's 150th Anniversary public lecture series.

"The louder the sound, the less available time you have without causing damage. Hearing loss is life long. You don't get over it." He says hearing loss is a normal consequence of ageing. "But we are making it worse," he says. "People are living longer and the concern is that we are going to have more people in the older age ranges who are going to have more hearing loss."

He says people should have routine ear checks after the age of 50 and younger people should see their GP if they have ringing in their ears or other issues. "There are lots of options to restore communication. Far more options than have been available in the past."

He says scientists are working on ways to improve technology and cochlear implants should improve dramatically over the next 10 to 15 years. At present, using a cochlear implant can be tiring, as the listener needs to concentrate both on active listening and the message itself, similar to what normal hearers experience when they are trying to communicate in a second language.

"We want to shift it to a point where people do not need to think too much about the action of listening. "In the future we are hoping to overcome a lot of the issues, like enabling people to sleep with their implant or use it in water." Australian Associated Press

How old are your ears?

How to stop work-related hearing loss

Working in loud environments over long periods of time can result in hearing loss. The most effective way to prevent hearing loss is to prevent or eliminate noise at the source. Purchase quieter machinery. Install engineered controls such as buffer walls or muffling equipment. If this is not possible, use administrative controls such as rotating tasks to minimize the length of time a worker is exposed to noise. If a worker has to be exposed to noise, he or she must wear the right hearing protection.

Hearing Loss Prevention

There are several varieties of hearing protection available. Choosing the best model for your specific needs is important to your overall safety.

Earplugs

An earplug is a device worn in the external ear canal. The earplug protects the inner ear by blocking and reducing noise levels. Earplugs can be custom-molded to fit the individual wearer. Earplugs can be made from vinyl, silicone, elastomer formulations, cotton, wax, spun glass wool and slow-recovery closed-cell foam.

Semi-insert Earplugs

A semi-insert earplug is a device worn against the opening of the external ear canal. The semi-insert earplug works in much the same way as plugging your ears with your fingers. Semi-insert earplugs are made in a one-size-fits-all method. The device is held in place with a lightweight headband.

Earmuffs

An earmuff is a device that completely encloses the outer ear and seals against the head with a cushion. Composed of a headband and two ear cups that are usually made of plastic. The headband may be made of metal or plastic. The cushion inside the ear cup is usually made of foam or it may be filled with fluid. Most earmuffs have a lining inside the ear cup to absorb the sound that is transmitted through the shell of the ear cup. Some earmuffs are designed so that the headband can be worn over the head, behind the neck, or under the chin. Some earmuffs are designed to fit over hard hats.
The most effective way to protect against hearing loss, is to wear hearing protection 100% of the time.

Source: WorkSafe Saskatchewan

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