• Can you talk about the importance of early diagnosis in hearing impaired children?
The quality of hearing experiences is very important for the development of children in all areas. Because development is a whole. Loss of one of the senses negatively affects other areas of development. For this reason, our aim is to ensure that every individual with hearing loss can be diagnosed and equipped in the early period, and follow their developmental stages in the same process as their peers.
• Can you tell us about the diagnosis process of a child with hearing loss?
Newborn hearing screening is mandatory for every baby born in our country. The purpose of screening hearing aids for every baby who is or is not in the risk group is to provide early diagnosis conditions. When a result that creates a suspicion of hearing loss is encountered in the hearing screening, behavioral tests and objective tests are applied to the baby by the audiologists. As a result of the tests, the existing hearing loss in the child is determined.
Diagnosing the baby with hearing loss in the first three months, applying the device to the baby before the sixth month and starting both auditory and verbal education are important for the baby's development. It should also not be forgotten that; Families play an important role in the early recognition of hearing loss that may occur in the postnatal period of infants undergoing newborn hearing screening. Families need to be conscious and carefully monitor their children's development.
• What should families pay attention to for early diagnosis?
Considering the hearing impairments that occur in the postnatal period, the biggest task in early diagnosis falls to the families. It is not the right method to monitor the development of speech for recognizing hearing loss in a baby. Families should pay attention to whether the baby/child reacts to human-environmental sounds in order to recognize hearing impairment at an early stage. In addition, lack of orientation towards the source of the sound, the desire to be constantly close to the speaker or to see his face, recurrent middle ear infections, the desire to watch television from a close distance, the inability to follow simple instructions, the skipping of some sounds during speech and the lack of fluency, the long-term silence, the attention span. They should consult an otolaryngologist in the presence of conditions such as being too short, not understanding speech in noisy environments, declining academic performance, skipping words while reading, difficulty in reading, and discomfort from being in crowded environments.
• How should families of diagnosed and device infants/children follow?
First of all, families who have just encountered hearing impairment in this process should be able to accept the situation in order to help their children. While some families adapt easily to this situation, the adaptation process of some families can be a little more time-consuming. We recommend that families in need get professional support so that they can move forward in the acceptance process in a healthier way.
For the maintenance of the devices, the warnings of the device company should be taken into account, the battery of the device should be checked and the device should be cleaned. In order to get maximum benefit from the device, it is necessary to use the device regularly and the baby/child should use the device regularly. The baby/child should start auditory rehabilitation training immediately after the device process. Auditory rehabilitation training is given by audiologist, hearing impaired teacher and audiology and speech disorders specialists. The child's academic development, language, motor, social, etc. development areas should also be supported in a multidisciplinary approach, together with other experts in the field. The baby's auditory development and general development should be monitored.
