Specifics of fitting children with hearing aids

Early diagnosis, as well as the high quality of modern hearing aids create all the conditions required for early fitting of children. For babies experiencing hearing loss during the first months of their lives, the optimal fitting age is 4–6 months. The period of adaptation to the hearing aids is individual for each baby and varies between one week and several months. Children aged above one year often require several months to become comfortable with their hearing aids.
Parents together with education audiologists have to teach the child to hear using the hearing aids. After the child becomes interested in sounds and learns to understand them, they will readily wear hearing aids.
When fitting babies, it is preferable to use digital hearing aids as they ensure high acoustic quality and fine tuning, as well as protection from excessive amplification of loud sounds.

When selecting hearing aids for children, it is critical to choose a model that will provide a 30–35% power margin, as some children tend to experience progressive hearing loss during the first years of their lives, and such a “power margin” may compensate it.
Constant monitoring of the child’s hearing and evaluating the performance of the hearing aid are necessary. If the child’s hearing deteriorates, they may require replacing their hearing aid with an enhanced model. Effectively setting up hearing aids for babies is possible only when the audioprosthetist teams up with the education audiologist, and with the parents engaged in the child’s rehabilitation.
The specialists and parents watch the development of the child’s reaction to human speech and sounds of the environment, the development of child’s own speech, and notice any potential negative reactions to the sounds. The parents are advised to keep a journal recording their child’s auditory reactions.
Please contact your audioprosthetist from SATR Center for more details.