Hearing impairment in children

According to the sample survey of disabled people in China in 2005, there are more than 20 million people with hearing impairment in China, and about 100000 new children with hearing impairment are added every year. Most of them still have residual hearing of different degrees, which is hopeful for recovery.

Deafness can be divided into conductive deafness, sensorineural deafness and mixed deafness.

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(1) the causes of conductive deafness in children are as follows:

1. Congenital atresia of external auditory meatus and abnormal development of middle ear structure.

2. Acquired diseases such as foreign bodies in the external auditory canal, cerumen, furuncle, otitis media, etc. among them, the incidence of otitis media in children is high, which can cause serious intracranial and external complications and endanger life. It is necessary to find and treat them as soon as possible. If you find a child crying and disturbing, scratching his ears and turning his head (before learning to speak) or complaining of earache, ear occlusion, ear stream and pus, slow response to sound, and happy to turn up the TV sound, etc., you should take the child to the otolaryngology department for treatment as soon as possible. Conductive deafness can be recovered after active treatment. Children who cannot recover need to wear hearing aids.

(2) there are many causes of sensorineural deafness in children, including genetic, infectious diseases, drugs (kanamycin, gentamicin, streptomycin, etc.), birth injury, hypoxia, etc.

Normal children have hearing after birth, and can detect whether there is abnormal hearing; children 6 months ago have facial tremor, blink, turn around to find the sound source for sudden voice; children around 1 year old can imitate adults’ pronunciation, spontaneous two syllable words, such as father, mother, etc.; children between 2 and 3 years old can speak 200 words; but children with hearing loss have language development retardation or even loss of speech, Due to the lack of auditory control, the voice is uneven, the language is vague, the voice construction is difficult, and the intellectual development is delayed or blocked.

Children with hearing impairment should be detected in the hospital as soon as possible. Children who are young and can’t cooperate should be tested with acoustic immittance and brainstem auditory evoked potential. Children who can cooperate should be tested with pure tone to evaluate their hearing comprehensively. Once the hearing impairment is screened out and determined, appropriate hearing aid amplification equipment should be selected immediately For children with deafness who wear hearing aids for 3-6 months, it is not effective or the effect is not ideal. Cochlear implant should be performed. Direct pedestrian cochlear implant can be considered for children with severe deafness. Language training should be carried out after wearing hearing aids or cochlear implants.

Since the development of left and right brain and the acquisition of speech began gradually from birth, the best time to acquire speech language ability is before the age of 6. According to the statistics report of infant hearing centers in some developed countries abroad, if children with hearing impairment are screened and trained in the neonatal period, they can master 500 words by the age of 3, close to normal children (750 words). Therefore, children with hearing impairment should be rehabilitated. The rehabilitation indications are:

1. Deaf children under 3 years old – golden age.

2. Deaf children under 6 years old – better period.

3. Deaf children with residual hearing – all children can be trained to improve their quality of life.