Surgical Procedure That Can Remedy Hearing Loss - Cochlear Implant

Sean, who was born at 8lbs and 6oz, obliviously had his hearing assessed after living for only thirty-six hours. He was taken by an audiologist to a testing station with a personal computer that looked perfectly ordinary except that it had some wires attached to it. One wire had a small plastic device at one end, which she carefully placed just inside Sean's right ear, then tapped out a few keystrokes on the keyboard. Immediately, the screen lit up with a wide array of graphics.

This test was performed at an ear research institute and is performed on newborns so they will have a better chance at overcoming the adversity they may face in life. In this country alone, 4,000 children are born profoundly deaf while another 24,000 are born with some loss of hearing. The chance for parents to help their children through life with little to no disability has been given to them by the OAE, also known as otoacoustic emissions test, which will let pediatricians and families know soon after birth whether the baby has a hearing problem or not.

Too many times a child reaches the age of two or three before it is found that they have a problem with their hearing. The consequences of such a late diagnosis can be dire. There are delays in speech and language development. They have problems developing their language because they aren't able to hear the things that surround them. The first couple of years of life are critical for the emotional and intellectual development of the child. Hearing issues going undetected have been know to lead to a misdiagnosis in a child's mental capabilities.

The testing of newborn babies used to be very expensive and complex before OAE was introduced in 1990. The test employed in those days was called the auditory brain stem response, and it did provide an accurate reading of a child's hearing ability. The test actually measures the activity of the auditory nerve itself as it sends messages to the brain and is done by attaching electrodes to the baby. These tests cost a minimum of $90 and take 30 minutes to complete, also they require the presence of a professional physician or audiologist to do the testing. There aren't enough audiologists or physicians in the country to conduct this test on every newborn.

On the other hand, the OAE is a cheaper system and doesn't have to be performed by an audiologist. Hearing is tested by measuring the motion of hair cells located in the cochlea when they are struck by sound waves, a short and easy five-minute process. A transmitter is placed into the baby's inner ear, and the microphone is sensitive to the hair cell's vibratory responses. The test was then repeated on the other ear. In this case, the baby had normal hearing.

For infants who fail the first test, a second one is completed one week later. This is because there can be fluid trapped in the canal of the ear shortly after birth which can give inaccurate results. If the second test indicates the same results, then an auditory brain stem response test is done to find the exact cause. Once testing is complete, the parents sit down with the baby's pediatrician and the audiologist to discuss their options for treatment.

An infant as young as 3 months old, can have a hearing aid fitted for them, when the hearing impairment is negligible. Hearing aids may be all that's required to bring a newborn's hearing into a normal range. Once a baby comes to be eighteen months old, a surgeon will be able to conduct a cochlear implant, which is a surgery involving permanent rectification for their hearing conditions.

When it comes to severe hearing conditions, a parent learns early on in life to take more time with teaching their child about their planet by employing visual prompts. If such an infant receives this intensive focus from the parents, he will be more likely to develop intellectual and emotional skills at the normal rate. A parent is confronted with having to pick different methodologies in managing deafness, including such techniques as lip-reading, cued speech, ASL (American Sign Language) and hearing aids, each method has those who believe it is the most productive.

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