Assessing Your Baby's Hearing
What is a diagnostic assessment?
A diagnostic assessment is a full assessment of your child’s hearing by an Audiologist who specializes in childhood hearing. Audiologists have a Masters degree in hearing health care (Audiology).
Your Audiologist may do many different tests during your child’s assessment. S/he will explain how the tests work, and what the results mean. All tests are painless and will not harm your child in any way.
It is important to keep your test appointment and find out about your child’s hearing.
When should my child have a diagnostic assessment?
- If your child had a "refer" result on newborn hearing screening in one or both ears, your child should have a follow-up diagnostic assessment
- If your child passed newborn hearing screening, but has a risk factor for hearing loss that can occur later in childhood, then your child should have a follow-up diagnostic assessment. Examples of risk factors for late-onset hearing loss include:
- Low birth weight (less than 1200 grams)
- Family history of permanent hearing loss in childhood occurring before 12 years of age
- Jaundice at birth requiring blood transfusion
- Infection with one of the following: toxoplasmosis, rubella, Cytomegalovirus (CMV), herpes, syphilis
- meningitis (viral or bacterial)
- extended period of ventilation as a newborn
- extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment
- Syndrome associated with hearing loss such as Down Syndrome, Alport’s syndrome, Usher syndrome, Pendred’s syndrome, Treacher Collins, Branchio-Oto-Renal syndrome
- cleft palate
- If you are concerned about your child’s hearing, your child should have a diagnostic assessment, even if your child passed newborn hearing screening.
- If your child has delayed speech and language development, your child should have a diagnostic assessment.
- If your child has been diagnosed with a hearing loss, then your child should have regular diagnostic assessments.
What will happen during a diagnostic assessment with an Audiologist?
Audiologists have many different tests that they can use to assess a child’s hearing. (Find out more about diagnostic audiology tests).
When will I get results from the diagnostic assessment?
In most cases, the results of the test will be explained to you by the Audiologist immediately after the test. Sometimes it takes more than one appointment to accurately assess a child’s hearing.