Скачать или смотреть Importance of Pediatric hearing screening testing (OAE & BERA) - Dr. Sreenivasa Murthy T. M

Every child born is now universally screened for hearing loss. This is very important because it is in the first 2 years that the child gets auditory stimulus from everywhere. When I say auditory stimulus, it what the parents speak or the other human beings that the child comes into contact, the child is able to hear them speak. If the child doesn't hear anything at all form the environment, then obviously the child cannot replicate or mimic what he or she should be hearing. The biggest fall back of not being able to hear could be that the child would not have a good speech development. Hence there is a universal screening programme in place. What does this screening programme contain? Every child born in hospital is usually screened either on the day of birth or before the child is discharged with OAE. OAE. Stands for Otoacoustic Emissions. This is a screening tool, whether the child is able to hear at 30 decibels or not the report would be given either as a REFER or FAIL or PASS. If it is given a REFER, then the child is not able to hear at 30 decibels. This doesn't mean that the child is not able to hear. Sometimes a new bornchild may have the birth fluids filing the ear canal, which itself can interfere with hearing. Hence if the report is either REFER or FAIL, we ask the child to come back again so that the process can be repeated after a couple of weeks. If the second test comes as FAIL or REFER, then we move on to confirmatory tests called as BERA or Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry. This will be able to tell us whether the child is able to hear or not. Early identification of hearing loss will mean that we can intervene with the child's hearing and we can rehabilitate the child better so that by the age of 2, they can join the mainstream and the they will be able to grow as any other child and develop speech as any other child.