New technology helps infants to hear

From: Lake Houston Sun, TX - May 28, 2003

By M.A. Bengtson

During May, Better Hearing and Speech Month, these professionals have set their sights on creating awareness that even infants may experience profound hearing loss.

You have to be old to need hearing aids...right?

Not necessarily say the audiologists and speech pathologists at San Jacinto Methodist Hospital's Speech and Audiology Center located at the hospital's Alexander Campus.

During May, Better Hearing and Speech Month, these professionals have set their sights on creating awareness that even infants may experience profound hearing loss.

Based on the idea that the sooner hearing loss is detected and a child receives treatment, the better his/her chances of gaining adequate speech skills. To this end, the state now requires hospitals to test newborns for hearing deficiencies before they ever make their first trip home.

A case in point is 3-month-old Janean Gunn, the tiny daughter of Jane and Tim Gunn of Crosby.

"She was tested when she was born at San Jacinto," said Jane Gunn. "When we were told she failed the test at the hospital, we tried it six times. On our own, my husband and I tried (getting her attention) snapping our fingers, whistling and clapping our hands to evaluate her response.

"My husband has a child, Timmy, who is profoundly deaf, and has a cochlear implant. So we are aware of the signs of hearing loss and we are anxious to find out how severe her hearing loss is," Gunn said. "Depending on the level of hearing loss, she may be fitted with hearing aids."

To determine the extent of Janean's hearing loss, SJMH audiologist Jennifer Holland has begun the screening process by inserting a testing probe into her ear.

"This new equipment, which determines otoacoustic emissions, puts sound into her ear," Holland said. "A normal ear will send a response, a sound we can't hear, from the inner hearing organ, the cochlea." Holland explained that the state-of-the-art equipment then sends information to a computer for read out that can be analyzed. "It doesn't give us diagnostics, but it does give us a cue that more intensive testing is needed," Holland said.

Determining the extent of hearing loss in a child is critical to their ability to develop normal speech, according to Becky Galey, San Jacinto's supervisor of Speech-Language-Pathology.

"The Gunns have been referred to the Early Childhood Intervention Program," Galey said.

"ECI will go to their home to begin speech evaluation problems and response to sounds, based on the age of the child. If Janean needs the amplification provided by hearing aids, then the ECI staff will know how to proceed with speech and language therapy to reduce the effects of the hearing loss will have on the child's speech development," Galey said.

©Lake Houston Sun 2003