What kind of hearing aids are suitable for children?

What kind of hearing aids are suitable for children?

Children may be diagnosed with hearing impairment shortly after birth. According to the principles of early detection, early intervention, and early treatment, hearing-impaired children need to wear hearing aids in infants and young children. In reality, it is difficult for infants and young children to cooperate with hearing tests, and the development of children’s ears is not yet mature, which brings many difficulties to hearing-impaired families and hearing aids. The use of hearing aids can maximize the stimulation of speech sounds in infants and young children, and the intensity of speech sounds heard is within a safe and comfortable audible range, that is, the intensity of speech sound after amplification should be at the sensory threshold of infants and young children. Above, but lower than the discomfort threshold for all speech frequency ranges of both ears. Therefore, parents can eliminate the fear that the hearing aid will ruin the child’s ears.

In the choice of infants and children wearing hearing aids and later rehabilitation, parents should know the following things:

Infants and young children should use soft ear mold infants should use soft ear mold as much as possible, pay attention to the impact of ear mold on the acoustic characteristics of hearing aids. Parents of children should always observe whether there is feedback. The feedback management function needs to be turned on during debugging, but it is necessary to know that the effect of feedback suppression is limited, and do not rely too much. In order to ensure good sealing of the ear mold, the ear mold should be replaced regularly. Parents should also know that if a child wears a hearing aid and has frequent crying or refuses to wear it, it must not be forced to use it. Instead, it should be searched for reasons, which may be caused by excessive amplification. Contact the fitter in time. Or return to the clinic. In addition, once the parents find that the child’s auditory behavior is abnormal, such as the reaction to the sound becomes dull, etc., the hearing aid should be checked immediately and consulted as soon as possible.

Choose a good hearing aid as much as possible

Although we say that we should choose a hearing aid that suits us, for infants and toddlers, there is no doubt that the better the hearing aids, the better the language development of the child. Since infants and young children learn language by listening to speech, they should ensure that the electroacoustic characteristics of the hearing aid can meet the high requirements for verbal audibility and the comprehensive effect after hearing aids. The assessment requirements are validated, so if economic conditions permit, you should try to give your child a high-quality, all-digital hearing aid with high sensitivity, performance and quality. High fidelity, wideband gain, directional microphones, and digital noise reduction techniques are necessary to avoid distortion and speech recognition difficulties in speech signal amplification.

Parents should give feedback to hearing aids on a regular basis

For infants and young children who use hearing aids, the process of fine-tuning the hearing aid is especially important. In the early stages of fine tuning, parents should2~3The circumferential hearing aid fitter feedbacks an opinion to observe the auditory behavior and language response after using the hearing aid, and after fine adjustment of the hearing aid1During the year, every3Monthly assessment of the development of auditory speech. For the baby’s use of hearing aids in daily life, parents can do some home tests and diary records, and feedback some of the conditions observed at home to the doctor or hearing aid fitter. It can be evaluated once every six months or one year, and parents should learn how to observe the reaction of infants and young children to sound. The fitting, debugging and effect evaluation of infant hearing aids is a process of gradual precision and perfection. Parents must have patience.

Parents should pay attention to changes in children at different times

Children are in a period of growth and development, especially in the preschool stage, which is a crucial period for learning language. If the child is unable to receive enough verbal information stimulation due to hearing impairment at this stage, he or she will not be able to master the pronunciation skills, and the speech will be unclear and even become a deaf person. Parents should pay attention to the changes in the child’s various periods in order to find out if the child’s hearing aid can really play a good role. Parents should know the following information. Newborn babies can hear louder sounds;3~6The direction of the sound can be discerned in a month;6Can hear a small voice in about a month;6~7Months can send out “Daddy, Mom” ​​and other sounds;8~9Month can be called “Dad, Mom”;1Years can imitate the language;Two years old can express their meaning in words;3~4I can tell short fairy tales. The main reason for the auditory deprivation effect is that the ear of the hearing aid conveys enough information to the brain that the brain no longer pays attention to the ear without the hearing aid, and the brain seems to give up the attention to transmitting the weaker signal ear. In order to avoid this phenomenon, the most effective solution at present is to simultaneously select hearing aids for both ears.

Enhanced binaural loudness integration effect

The acoustics accepted by binaural hearing are higher than the single ear. At the threshold level, the binaural threshold is better than the single ear threshold.3decibel. At the threshold level, the binaural threshold is better than the monaural threshold10decibel. Therefore, wearing the hearing aid with both ears can slightly reduce the overall gain of each hearing aid, thereby reducing the possibility of acoustic feedback and increasing the battery life. At the same time, for patients with severe paralysis, the probability of the hearing aid entering saturation is reduced, which is more helpful to improve the speech intelligibility after hearing aid.

Delay the decline of auditory nerve function

Solving the phenomenon of auditory deprivation is to solve the progressive decline of the central nervous function. Life is in motion, and the nerve cells in the central nervous system can achieve the purpose of exercise by the stimulation of sound. Therefore, it is very important for each patient with bilateral hearing loss to be able to have both ears in a normal vocal state, and to stimulate the excitation of the auditory nerve by acoustic stimulation.