— SERVICES —
Hearing Assessment
Children (age 4+)
Comprehensive Hearing Assessment for Children
Pure-Tone Play Audiometry (Age 4+ School Age)
A hearing test for pre-school children: Once trained (conditioned) and familiar with the listening game (test instructions), the child is seated in a sound-proof booth with a small table and is asked to drop a toy into a bucket / put the wooden men in the boat / stack a ring / build a tower whenever he/she hears a beep through the headphones (over the ear) or insert earphones (soft sponge tips inserted into the ear canals) or bone conductor headset (headband with transducer behind the ear). Results are recorded on a hearing test chart (Audiogram).
Speech Audiometry: Listening skills and receptive language will be assessed by using Speech Reception Threshold test (show me your eyes/ears etc.) and Speech Discrimination tests (McCormack Toy Task test). The child listens to the Audiologist say a word through the headphones/insert earphones and has to point to the associated picture on a picture card that matches the spoken word. If the child cannot hear the word, the volume is raised until the child can hear clearly and this level is noted as the speech discrimination level.
Bone conduction: Beeps/tones are presented by bone vibration through a special bone conductor headband (not headphone), with the transducer placed behind the test ear. Sound travels from the outer ear, directly to the inner ear and hearing nerve bypassing the middle ear.
Pure-tone play audiometry
Speech audiometry - McCormack toy task
Bone conduction audiometry
Pure-tone audiometry is performed using a set of calibrated headphones in a sound proof booth
Pure-Tone Audiometry for school children and adolescents
A hearing test for school-aged children: The child will be required to sit in a sound-proof booth wearing headphones or insert earphones and press a button whenever he/she hears a beep/tone. This test is then proceeded by speech audiometry and bone conduction.
Speech Audiometry: Speech Reception Threshold: The child repeats two-syllable words (Spondee words-example: rainbow, toothbrush), while the volume of the words are gradually being lowered, until the child can no longer hear the words.
Speech Discrimination Threshold: The child is instructed to listen to a phonetically-balanced word list (PB-Words) presented by a pre-recorded word list or by live monitored voice by the audiologist and repeats one word at a time, back to the Audiologist.
Bone conduction: The child wears a ‘headband’ with a transducer behind one ear (test ear), tones are presented as before and sound travels through bone vibration from the outer ear, directly to the inner ear and hearing nerve bypassing the middle ear.
If there is a discrepancy noted between the test ear and non-test ear hearing results then masking (white noise) will be presented to distract the non-test ear to obtain the true threshold of the test ear. The child is instructed to ignore the ‘wind noise’ in the non-test ear and press the button when the beep/tone is heard in the test ear.
All pediatric hearing assessment reports and results are sent out to Parents. When required a copy of the assessment results and report are sent to a School Teacher, Doctor, Ear Nose and Throat Consultant or other professionals such as a Speech Language therapist, Occupational Therapist or Educational Psychologist.
