Hearing Loss
Source hearingloss.org
Everyday in the United States, approximately 1 in 1,000 newborns (or 33 babies every day) is born profoundly deaf with another 2-3 out of 1,000 babies born with partial hearing loss, making hearing loss the number one birth defect in America. Of the 12,000 babies in the United States born annually with some form of hearing loss, only half exhibit a risk factor – meaning that if only high-risk infants are screened, half of the infants with some form of hearing loss will not be tested and identified. In actual implementation, risk-based newborn hearing screening programs identify only 10-20% of infants with hearing loss. When hearing loss is detected beyond the first few months of life, the most critical time for stimulating the auditory pathways to hearing centers of the brain may be lost, significantly delaying speech and language development.
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One in every ten, or 28 million, Americans has hearing loss. |
Types of Hearing Loss
Sensorineural hearing loss (or nerve-related deafness) involves damage to the inner ear caused by aging, pre-natal and birth-related problems, viral and bacterial infections, heredity, trauma, exposure to loud noise, fluid backup, or a benign tumor in the inner ear. Almost all sensorineural hearing loss can be effectively treated with hearing aids.
Conductive hearing loss involves the outer and middle ear that may be caused by blockage of wax, punctured eardrum, birth defects, ear infection, or heredity, and often can be effectively treated medically or surgically.
Mixed hearing loss refers to a combination of conductive and sensorineural loss and means that a problem occurs in both the outer or middle and the inner ear.
Central hearing loss results from damage or impairment to the nerves or nuclei of the central nervous system, either in the pathways to the brain or in the brain itself.
American Speech-Language Hearing Association
Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, Inc.
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders
