What is the treatment for a child's hearing loss?

Conductive hearing losses are usually temporary and can be treated by a doctor. For example, hearing returns to normal when an ear infection clears up.

Sensorineural and central hearing losses are usually permanent. Wearing hearing aids often helps with sensorineural hearing loss. Children with sensorineural or central hearing loss may be helped by special therapy.

A child with a hearing loss can be helped at any age. He should see his audiologist (one who evaluates and manages hearing loss) at least once a year. The earlier a child gets help, the better his speech and communication will be when he grows up.

Any degree of hearing loss can impact your child’s social and academic development. However, with proper training, instruction, and treatment, your child can live a fully productive and engaged life regardless of the degree of her hearing loss. There are hearing aids and assistive listening devices to fit every lifestyle, as well as surgical procedures, such as cochlear implants, to treat severe losses.

Also, comprehensive treatment programs such as individual or group aural rehabilitation can improve daily life by helping your child cope with every facet of living with a hearing loss. These programs teach kids how to make productive use of residual hearing, how to improve communications, and how to use hearing aids and cochlear implants most effectively. If not properly managed, hearing loss can affect a child’s speech and language development, academic capabilities and educational development, and self-image and social/emotional development.

From Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children by Jennifer Trachtenberg.

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