Children’s hearing aid debugging needs to pay attention to which

Children’s hearing aid debugging needs to pay attention to which

Hearing aid debugging can be said to be a very important problem affecting the rehabilitation effect of hearing-impaired children. If the adjustment is not proper, the hearing compensation will not directly affect the child’s listening effect, and it will hinder a series of follow-up rehabilitation education such as pronunciation and language expression.

First of all, the gain problem in the selection of children’s hearing aids, you need to pay attention to the following points:

1Choose a fitting formula suitable for children during programming, such as DSLv5. At present, most companies’ fitting software has automatic identification function. As long as the user’s date of birth is entered when the customer file is created, the fitting software will automatically identify the user’s age to determine which fitting formula to use. Children under the age of 9 must enter the date of birth of the child when fitting and debugging the hearing aid;

2Children’s ear canals are smaller than adults, so the same intensity of sound produces a higher sound pressure level in children’s tympanic membrane than adults, so for loud gains, children need less magnification than adults, that is, In order to fully protect the residual hearing of children with hearing loss, it is necessary to appropriately reduce the loud gain;

3Children are still in the language acquisition stage, and their speech recognition ability is worse than that of adults. It is especially difficult to use their own language knowledge and language background at the time to guess the whispers that are difficult to hear directly. Studies have shown that for the accurate identification of some meaningless syllables, the sound intensity required by infants is 26dB higher than that of adults. Therefore, for hearing loss children, we need to appropriately increase the small sound gain to help improve their speech recognition ability;

4In addition, the gain of each frequency segment needs to be considered. In addition to the extra high frequency gain (because the high frequency signal is most difficult for children to detect), children also need sufficient low frequency gain compared to adults, because of the many intonations and life. The other sound signals are low frequency signals. These low frequency signals are an important part of communication in the early stage of hearing system development. With the development of children’s auditory system and language knowledge, it is necessary to adjust the corresponding frequency response curve at any time.

Secondly, the function setting of the children’s hearing aids is optional. Different stages of children need different function settings. The 0-6 age stage needs to be divided into three age stages: newborn, infant and preschool children:

1Infants and young children who are pre-school, especially before the language training, are exposed to the stimulation of various acoustic signals in the environment to help their hearing center develop and learn. Therefore, for this stage, hearing aids are selected. Children, we recommend that the noise reduction, directionality and other functions be set to off.

2For school-age children and children in the language training stage, to achieve a certain speech recognition rate, the signal-to-noise ratio required for infants and young children is 7dB higher than that of adults, and the signal-to-noise ratio required by school-age children is 3dB higher than that of adults, which indicates that In the same environment, the voice that can be recognized by adults cannot be used by infants and young children, so it is necessary to turn on intelligent noise reduction and directional function to improve the signal-to-noise ratio to meet the needs of language learning;

3Since children spend most of their time at school, if they are listening to teachers in classrooms and classrooms, they need to limit the distance and shield the interference from environmental noise. No matter where they sit, they can clearly hear the teacher’s lectures and speak positively. It is necessary to use a wireless device (such as a mini audio converter) to match the hearing aid, because the smart wireless device can directly transmit the speaker’s voice to the hearing aid, without signal degradation, improve signal quality, and improve speech intelligibility.

The communication between the parents and the language teachers and the fitter is very important.

First of all, if you want the hearing aid to be accurate, the most important thing is to have a complete and accurate hearing test report. Otherwise, the lack of sound amplification or over-amplification will have a negative impact on your child.

Secondly, during the hearing aid debugging process, the parents and language teachers should fully communicate with the fitter. Parents of deaf children should provide detailed information on the medical history of deaf children and the response to different voices after wearing a hearing aid. The fitter should verify the hearing aid effect through real ear analysis, sound field assessment, and speech testing.

Third, pay attention to the maximum output volume, limit the maximum output volume of the hearing aid, and prevent the excessive volume from causing discomfort to the wearer or even damaging the remaining hearing (ie residual hearing). Therefore, the device setting is particularly important for children.

Fourth, choose a comfortable and comfortable ear mold, customize the ear mold according to the shape of the ear canal and hearing loss, and choose a professional and trained training fitter to serve you. When the hearing aid is whistling, the eardrum should be replaced in time instead of Conduct a feedback test.