Most children who are born with a hearing loss can be diagnosed through a hearing screening. But in some cases, the hearing loss is caused by infection, trauma, and/or noise exposure. Some hearing losses will not emerge until later in childhood, thus, it is important to have your child’s hearing evaluated regularly as they grow.

Several methods can be used to test hearing, depending on a child’s age, development, and health status. Behavioral tests involve careful observation of a child’s behavioral response to sounds like calibrated speech and pure tones. Pure tones are distinct pitches (frequencies) of sounds. Sometimes other calibrated signals are used to obtain frequency specific information. A behavioral response could be a head-turn by a toddler, a placement of a game piece by a preschooler, or a hand-raise by a child in grade school. Speech responses may involve picture identification of a word or repeating words at soft or comfortable levels. Very young children are capable of a number of behavioral tests.

Physiologic tests are not hearing tests but are measures that can partially estimate hearing function. They’re used for kids who can’t be tested behaviorally (due to young age, developmental delay, or other medical conditions) and can be completed at any age to find out where the breakdown of the auditory system has occurred.

You can read more about these by visiting the links below:

Visual Reinforcement Audiometry
Conditioned Play