Hearing Excellence offers Paediatric Hearing Tests for infants (0-6 months). It is like a physical examination for your ears; its purpose is to understand the overall auditory health and well-being of your ears without being invasive.  

The pediatric hearing test will assess if the patient has normal hearing using methods that do not require active patient participation.  

Getting tested early is important! The sooner you start monitoring your hearing health, the more comprehensive your hearing health history will be. This better prepares the audiologist, allowing them to have a better understanding of the nature and reason behind the patient’s hearing loss or any other audiological concerns. With a better understanding, our audiologists can provide you with a more comprehensive treatment plan, working to prevent the worsening of the patient’s condition or finding a solution for it.

This is done by performing the various tests listed below: 

Otoscopy 

An otoscopy exam uses an otoscope, a medical device designed to look into the ears, to visually inspect the patient’s outer ear, inside the ear canal, the eardrum, and the middle ear. This visual inspection can provide the clinician with valuable clues that may help answer the patient’s audiological concerns. For example, an otoscopy exam would inform the clinician if a patient has too much earwax, potentially causing temporary hearing loss. Visual inspection of the eardrum can also tell the clinician if a patient has an ear infection, in which case the audiologist can direct you to a doctor for medical treatment. 

Otoacoustic Emissions (OAEs)  

In this test, a specialized portable device is used to measure otoacoustic emissions. Our ear is composed of three parts: outer ear, middle ear, and the inner ear. Otoacoustic emissions are sounds that are generated from within the inner ear in response to a sound. The device produces test signals (sounds) that triggers the hair cells in the inner ear that respond to the sound by vibrating. The OAE device detects and measures the vibrations that echoes back into the middle ear. If you produce OAEs you will have normal hearing. In this way the OAE test can be used to evaluate and measure inner ear health. 

As this is a test that does not require active patient participation, the OAE test is used to screen newborns for hearing loss.