Microtia

Twenty-six percent of infants ears demonstrated hearing loss during the first year of life, and 78% of children’s ears demonstrated hearing loss during the study period. Of the children’s ears with hearing loss, 100% had a conductive component and 26% had an additional sensorineural component (mixed hearing loss…Common temporal bone findings included thickening and sclerosis of the

The National Institute on Deafness defines the cochlear implant as, “… a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing.” The cochlear implant was first introduced in 1979 and it is estimated that 324,000 implants have been implanted worldwide. The surgery is proven to work better when the child being implanted is young, preferably younger than five. It is ideal to implant a child before their language or speech has developed. The FDA has approved children as young as 12-months old to receive the cochlear implant.

Acute Otitis Media (AOM), inflammation or infection of the middle ear, is an illness most parents have had experience with. Countless hours of lost sleep and worry secondary to their child’s pain and distress can keep even the most seasoned parents awake at night. Before the age of 36 months, 83% of children will experience 1 or more ear infections and AOM is the most common reason for office visits of preschoolers in the United States (Zhou, Shefer, Kong & Nuorti, 2008). The graphic below serves as a review of evidence and explores the usefulness of the information in relation to the option of watchful waiting in the management of AOM.

Explain that wearing the aids as often and as consistently as possible is essential to speech and language development for the child. The hearing aids provide access to sounds for the child and without this stimulation speech and language development will be negatively impacted. Auditory input is needed to help the child to learn to listen, if the aids are not being used and the auditory pathways of the brain are not being stimulated then the child will eventually lose that ability. The quality of the signal in the hearing aids is directly related to the child’s speech intelligibility. A high quality auditory input provides a better opportunity for learning and better speech intelligibility. Full access is important for children who are learning

Additionally, more than one third of children with minimal hearing loss fail at least one grade and exhibit social and/or emotional problems by the fourth grade. Such difficulties can often persist throughout the lifetime of an individual with a hearing impairment. The United States Department of Health states that the future of the child with hearing loss depends on early identification of hearing loss and its appropriate management. Landmark studies showed that with early identification and intervention prior to six months of age, children are able to achieve near age appropriate language skills (Baroch, 2003). Children with hearing loss born in hospitals that implemented UNHS were 2.6 times more likely than children with hearing loss born in non-screening hospitals of having language development within the normal range of development (Yoshinaga-Itano, 2003). Yoshinaga-Itano, Sedey, Coulter, & Mehl (1998) showed that children who were identified with hearing loss and received intervention services before the age of 6 months had significantly better receptive and expressive language scores than children identified after the age of 6 months. Early identified children with intervention have language development similar to their nonverbal cognitive development

“It’s very common among young children because the Eustachian tubes in their ears haven’t come into their proper position yet,” says Dr. Joseph Scianna of Northern Illinois ENT Specialists in Sycamore. He’s the specialist Corbin’s pediatrician

More than 70,000 deaf Americans have received cochlear implants since the FDA approved their use in 1985 for adults and for children in 1990 (ASHA Quick Facts 1). Since doctors externally implant the device and link it to the auditory nerve, a hearing-impaired child can detect noises slightly faster than adults who hear normally. Supporting this conclusion, findings from the University of Iowa’s otolaryngology department studies concluded that younger children tend to acclimate more easily, because most have not yet become accustomed to speaking with others. The results also revealed that the earlier the procedure occurs, the more benefit that is reaped over the long run (Cochlear Implant article, Aggen 1). In addition, this “early-action”, top-dollar implant proves to be one of the most cost-effective medical procedures, when one takes into consideration the cost required to address it later in life due to rising costs of the implants, or the lack of hearing takes a downturn. Nevertheless, cochlear implants do indeed provide a level of hearing previously deemed

Infants and children who suffer from hearing loss are at an increased risk for developing delayed speech, language, social, and emotional skills 1. Many children who suffer from mild to moderate hearing loss have great success with hearing aids, however those who are born profoundly deaf cannot benefit from hearing aids alone. If a profoundly deaf individual chooses to hear their only option is to have cochlear implants. Cochlear implants are a two-part system consisting of external and internal parts 2. The external part is much like a hearing aid that has a transmitter, speech processor, and microphone 2. The internal parts consist of the receiver and electrodes. The speech processor process sounds, sends the code to the transmitter 2. The

Bilateral otoscopy examinations indicated normal pinnas, external ear canals, and tympanic membranes. A pure tone

Our New Ears are a group of parents of children with cochlear implants who provide information and support.

Without hearing screenings average diagnosis of permanent hearing loss is greater than 2 years old. Late diagnosis of hearing loss has been one of the contributing factors of reduced language skills in children (Durieux-Smith, Fitzpatrick, & Whittingham, 2008). Since the early 1980s, the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing has published recommendations and multiple position statements which support the use of newborn hearing screenings, to decrease the age of diagnosis of children with permanent hearing loss. By 2000, there was a federal law to support universal newborn hearing screenings (UNHS). The law also promoted early intervention for children with hearing loss, in hopes to improve speech/language abilities for children with hearing loss

Today, in the United States, every two-thirds of every one thousand children are deaf or hard of hearing (Hearing Loss Association of America). This causes their everyday lives to be shaped much differently than normal children. They may have cochlear implants to help them hear. In fact, “In the United States, more than 25,000 children have received cochlear implants (Lenihan 2010). The child may also have a translator in the classroom to help them understand their regular teacher or may using American Sign Language (ASL) to help them in terms of speaking to another.

One intervention may work for one person but not the other. It is important that each person is evaluated and examined in order to provide the best intervention for their specific case. One intervention or treatment may be having a profession work with the hearing-impaired child and their family to learn the skills and tools to improve their communication skills. There are hearing devices that aid in helping to improve a persons hearing. Technology is constantly changing and improving with newer and better ways to improve a person’s hearing greatly (Treatment and Intervention Services, 2015). This can be seen in the video, where they speak about the cochlear implant. A Cochlear implant is where a “procedure that implants an electronic device under the skin behind the ear directly stimulate the auditory nerve” (Hardman, Drew, & Egan, 2014). In the documentary, we witnessed how the lives of the children who had received the implant were impacted, how their families were affected and how effective the procedure was to their speech and language development and their social

According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, “About 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children in the United States are born with a detectable level of hearing loss in one or both ears.” Cochlear Implants are mechanical devices that are highly promoted by the hearing society to “cure” deafness. Despite the fact Cochlear Implants can be effective, the risk of serious physical and emotional harm to a patient outweighs the chances of its success.

Microtia is an inherited deformity of an underdeveloped pinna. Most commonly, microtia occurs in males and unilaterally in the right ear, but approximately 10% occur bilaterally (Bonilla, 2016).  If a child has this disease bilaterally, they are typically given a bone-conduction hearing aid (2016). An extreme case of microtia, called anotia, is when the pinna is when the pinna is so underdeveloped, it looks as if there is no ear.  Some researchers and doctors prefer to microtia and anotia as microtia-anotia since they have the same origin. The actual cause of microtia is still unclear, though there are multiple theories (Lin, 2015).  One of them is that in utero, there was a decreased blood supply to the ear being developed.  Another is that