Children with language problems to the ear specialist

When children hear badly

08/08/2013

In Germany, two out of every 1,000 children are born deaf or even deaf. There are also many children with moderate or slight hearing loss. Not infrequently, hearing disorders occur during childhood, explains Robin Hübner, specialist for ear, nose and throat medicine in Münster. In congenital or early childhood deafness, the defect is often in the inner ear. Sometimes, if a hearing disorder remains undetected, the development can be massively impaired and not only in the language.

In nearly half of all hearing impaired children, this impairment is congenital. It is said that the hearing impairment occurred before birth, during childbirth, or within 6 months. In any case, parents should worry if their child does not react to the sounds in their environment or if they only react to loud pronunciation.

Causes of deafness
Deafness can occur in different forms. The sound is no longer directed completely into the inner ear. Such hearing loss can cause harmless causes, such as Earwax, which clogs the ear canals or mucus accumulation in the tympanic cavity, have. This can be triggered by, among other things, chronic sinus or middle ear infections. But also

Infectious diseases such as mumps, rubella and measles can be triggers. Also eligible are meningitis, skull injuries or certain antibiotics that can also damage your hearing. Often you do not know the cause. In every third child, one can attribute the inherited deafness to inherited factors. In these cases, hearing often worsens with age.

New deafnesses occurring in infancy are in most cases no inner ear hearing loss, but are most often triggered by drumming. This liquid accumulates in the middle ear. As a rule, the sound can not be transmitted from the eardrum via the middle ear to the inner ear.

Inheritance, otitis media, infections
Most hearing problems develop after birth. One of the most common causes of childhood hearing loss is chronic middle ear infections. In addition, any bacterial infection of the middle ear can also spread to the inner ear. There is a risk that the affected ear is deafening.

Early detection is the right treatment
Since 2009 there is the so-called newborn hearing screening in Germany. For many, this check-up, which is free of charge and legally entitled to everyone, is controversial.

On average, a child is already 2 1/2 years old with us until a hearing loss is detected that has existed since birth. This is almost too late for optimal treatment to prevent irreversible deficits in the Hörbahnreifung. The later the detection of the damage, the harder the treatment for the physicians. If a stimulation of the Hörbahn in the first year is not or only insufficient, this can not be made up later“, says Hübner

When hearing loss is diagnosed, most children with modern hearing aids can be helped to hear well and have the opportunity to develop normally. These devices are already being used in very young babies.

"Technically, all hearing test procedures can be programmed into these hearing aids and thus adapted to the hearing of the child“, says Jens Pietschmann, hearing care professional in Frankfurt am Main. However, if a severe deafness or total deafness is attested, a hearing aid is usually not enough. There are special electronic inner ear prostheses, so-called cochlear implants. These are even used by children as young as one year, if a hearing aid is not enough.

Whether children with hearing loss need hearing aids, a hearing prosthesis or any other treatment depends on the cause of the hearing loss. In the early childhood new hearing impairments are usually no inner ear hearing, but most often caused by drumming. This liquid accumulates in the middle ear. As a rule, the sound can not be transmitted from the eardrum via the middle ear to the inner ear.

Mechthild Vocks-Hauck, Pediatrician from Berlin explains: "If children speak badly at the age of two, we often find that there is a conductive problem, ie hearing is responsible for the delayed speech development". (Fr)

Picture: S. Hofschlaeger