Children’s Hearing Consultation

You and your child will be seen by a clinical audiologist specialising in children’s hearing. We will first ask you about any concerns you have about your child’s hearing and then run through a short medical history. We will then perform a series of tests to evaluate your child’s ear health and hearing ability. The tests performed will vary depending on your child’s age, development and understanding but may include some of the following:

• We will examine the ears with a handheld otoscope (a tool used to examine the ear canal and eardrum) to check for wax and any obvious abnormalities in the ear canal.
• Tympanometry – a test that measures the movement of the eardrum and the function of the middle ear. This is completed by placing a small rubber tip into the ear canal and the pressure is gently changed. This is usually perfectly comfortable and takes just a few seconds. This test will check for congestion or fluid behind the eardrum, otherwise known as ‘Glue ear’.
• Pure tone audiometry – a test which is completed by presenting tones through a pair of headphones and a small headband known as a bone conductor. Each time your child hears one of these sounds, they will press down on a button, allowing the audiologist to identify the threshold of their hearing. This test can be adapted to ‘Play audiometry’ where instead of pressing a button, your child will engage in a simple game to acknowledge when they hear a sound. Play audiometry is typically easier for younger children to engage with.

If your child is not developmentally ready for pure-tone audiometry or play audiometry, otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) can assess the health of the inner ear whilst your child sits quietly. A small rubber tip is placed into their ear and a soft clicking sound is played. The equipment listens for an ‘echo’ produced from structures in the inner ear when they respond to this sound. This test does not provide a hearing threshold (the sound level below which a person’s ear is unable to detect any sound), nor will it confirm that a child is hearing the sound but can be useful to exclude some common hearing issues.

Once testing is complete, we will explain the results to you and advise if a referral to another specialist may be beneficial.