Do you have pre-school children? Have a hearing test done before the little one starts formal schooling.
Hearing loss can occur if a child:
- was born prematurely
- stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)
- had newborn jaundice with bilirubin level high enough to require a blood transfusion
- has family members with childhood hearing loss
- had certain complications at birth
- had many ear infections
- had infections such as meningitis or cytomegalovirus
Signs of a hearing loss may include:
- poor language and speech development when compared to other similar aged children
- frequently inattentive
- difficulty learning
- seems to need higher TV volume
- fails to respond to conversation-level speech or answers inappropriately to speech
- fails to respond to his or her name or easily frustrated when there's a lot of background noise