Getting Started With Hearing Aids
It is important for your baby to wear their prescribed hearing aids to provide critical sound input needed for auditory brain development. Early hearing aid use is connected to language skills.
From a parent: “For the first many months I felt discouraged. I thought my child wasn’t benefiting from hearing aids. I often wondered if it was worth all the effort. But, after a year, I started noticing changes in her response to sounds and she began trying to imitate some of our speech. Now, two years later, our daughter refuses to part with her hearing aids!”
When a cochlear implant is being considered, you will want to make sure your child is using hearing aids full time to provide whatever amount of sound stimulation possible in the meantime. Hearing aid use also ensures that you have all the information needed when evaluating whether your child is a cochlear implant candidate.
Your pediatric audiologist will recommend hearing aids that will provide your child with appropriate benefit. Some features of hearing aids that parents report are important include:
- FM use features and compatibility
- Tamper-resistant battery doors
- Volume control covers
Before getting the hearing aids, your baby will get earmold impressions to make the earmolds that need to fit snugly in the ear holding the hearing aid in place and directing the sound picked up by the hearing aid microphone to the child’s ear canal. Ask your audiologist about:
- Earmold types
- Earmold materials (especially if your child has any skin sensitivity or allergies)
- Acoustic feedback and earmolds
- Colours available
Putting the hearing aids on and keeping them on your child may be challenging. Infants younger than 6 months will often tolerate full time hearing aid use more quickly and easily than toddlers and older children. Parents report the following tips are often associated with regular hearing aid use:
- Getting information through parent driven, unbiased organizations such as http://www.handsandvoices.org/
- Putting the hearing aids on first thing in the morning
- Making sure the batteries are working each time before use and doing a “listening check”
- Smiling and using calm, positive, soothing talk such as “Hearing aids on… wake up time… good morning…”
- Meeting with other families with children who have hearing loss, and deaf and hard of hearing adults
- Feeling comfortable and confident with putting the hearing aids on, using the hearing aid functions, removing the hearing aids, trouble shooting the hearing aids, etc.
- Associating hearing aid use with routine activities such as morning snuggle time, getting dressed, having breakfast, listening and play times
- Removing the hearing aids before your child does and reintroducing them for short periods of time when you are able to spend time together
- Attending scheduled audiology appointments to monitor benefit and make appropriate, timely adjustments
Some parents find it helpful to encourage hearing aid use with Huggie Aids, special hats or headbands, wig tape, hearing aid sleeves and stickers for older children to reduce the chance of the hearing aids getting tugged at or pulled off. These items, as well as fishing lines, eyeglasses straps, cords, and straps help to reduce the anxiety many parents feel about losing or damaging the hearing aids.
