Hearing Loss And Hearing Impairment

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Hearing loss and/or hearing impairment occurs when there is an issue with one or more parts of the ear. Someone who has hearing loss may be able to hear some sounds or nothing at all. About 3 in 1,000 babies are born with hearing impairment, making it the most common birth defect (Morlet 2012). There are ways to determine if your child has a hearing impairment at birth, not to prevent your child from having a hearing impairment, but to determine if there is a possibility that your child may have the most common birth defect. Newborn hearing screening focuses on identifying hearing loss early (Listen 2013). In other words, if a newborn were to get a hearing screening shortly after birth, then there would be less percussions than if the parents waited to get a hearing test later on.
“The most important reason for early detection is so we can understand how to help a child’s language and communication growth,” says Dr. Susan E. Wiley, a developmental pediatrician and adjunct associate professor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Studies have shown that important language skills are learned before the age of 3 because hearing and learning language are closely tied together (Listen 2013). If a newborn is not tested before the age of 3, then that infant is susceptible to having not only language development, but communication issues with other infants their age as well. If your baby fails any of the screening tests, it is important that he or she gets additional testing and/or additional treatment right away. A failed screen means your baby’s results showed signs of having a condition in the screening. This does not always mean that your baby has the condition. It may just mean that more testing is needed (Boyle 2012...

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...g the time period of being born and turning five, a lot of language development did not occur, as it was suppose to. With my hearing not being diagnosed, I could not pick up on a lot of sounds a normal hearing toddler could. I had a hard time saying my constants since they are a high frequency tone.
In retrospect, all five articles agree that newborn hearing screenings are important. It is important not only to the child, but it is also important to the parents as well. Newborn hearing screening is vital to a child’s development in language, which could help or hinder the use of language in the future. The parents of this child with hearing impairments have to pay for this somehow and making the expenses cheaper for the parents will benefit them in the long run. All newborn hearing screenings will do is help the child with the hearing impairment and the parents.

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