Question
A three-month-old baby’s hearing test failed, indicating moderate hearing impairment. However, the parents have noticed that the child reacts to certain sounds. Is this a normal phenomenon?
Answer
Experts advise that newborn hearing assessments should be conducted within the first three months of life, with diagnoses completed before six months to allow for early intervention. Before intervention, it is important to introduce some preventive measures. Starting from pregnancy, focusing on maternal health care, preventing infections such as rubella and CMV, not only helps reduce hearing problems in newborns but also prevents many congenital diseases. Additionally, improving the quality of neonatal care in obstetrics can reduce the occurrence of serious perinatal diseases, such as early identification and timely treatment of pathological jaundice, and strict control of ototoxic drug use during the neonatal period. For children already diagnosed with hearing impairments, different medical intervention measures should be taken based on the specific causes, including cleaning earwax, treating effusive otitis media, auditory reconstruction surgery, and cochlear implantation. Hearing rehabilitation is also a crucial aspect, aiming to maximize the acquisition of speech characteristics for infants wearing hearing aids through personalized devices, ensuring that the heard sounds are within a safe and comfortable audible range. The assessment and intervention of social interaction skills are the new recommendations for comprehensive intervention for deaf children at present, aimed at enhancing and forming language abilities to restore growth and development levels, and increasing family recognition of their children’s abilities and needs. Early intervention requires collaboration between early intervention workers and patient families, providing early language cues during the sensitive period of language development, while also enabling them to obtain…