screening (hearing, children)
Last reviewed 03/2023
Screening of hearing in children is an area currently fraught with controversy; there is a national hearing screening programme in the UK.
- neonates still to noises, and respond sometimes in specific ways to particular noises like voices
- with development the infant is able localise noises, firstly in the horizontal plane, and then in the vertical plane, allowing full three dimensional localisation of noise
- infant up to 8 months old - assessed via distraction testing (infant will turn to sound); parents also give their own assessment of infant's hearing.
- child after the age of 2 years
- word-object test (McCormack) - child first points to objects that examiner names; child the points to objects when the examiner whispers the name of test objects (examiner may have hand over his mouth so that the child cannot lip-read).
- conditioning test - child performs a stated task on hearing a particular sound