Related concepts:

Hearing loss, Conductive hearing loss, Sensorineural hearing loss

Introduction to deafness:

In that first golden moment when you gazed at your baby in the delivery room, he was already beginning an amazing journey of learning. And how do children learn? They take in the world by using their five senses. The sight of your face, the feel of your touch, the taste of your milk, the scent of your unique aroma, and the sound of your voice combine to teach your son about the world.

Some children enter the world in silence.

We now know that hearing loss can significantly impair the ability to learn -- not just learning to speak but also to walk, to read, to write, to do well in school and to get along well with others.

The sooner hearing loss is detected and addressed; the better children will do overall.

What is deafness?

In a healthy ear, sound waves enter the ear canal and vibrate the eardrum at the end of the canal. The eardrum transmits the sound waves across the three tiny bones of the middle ear into the inner ear, where the information is converted to electrical impulses that travel along nerves to the brain, allowing us to hear.

There are two main types of hearing loss.

In conductive hearing loss, children have a problem transmitting sound waves through the outer ear, through the eardrum, or through the tiny bones of the middle ear.

In sensorineural hearing loss, the problem is with converting sound waves to electrical impulses, or in transmitting this electrical sound information along the auditory nerves to the brain.

Either conductive or sensorineural hearing loss may be present at birth, or may be acquired along the way. Hearing loss may be mild, complete, or somewhere in between.

Who gets deafness?

Usually severe sensorineural hearing loss in childhood is genetic (it runs in families – even if this child is the first). Sometimes, however, sensorineural hearing loss is a result of other problems, such as a rubella or CMV infection during pregnancy or meningitis infections later on.

Each year about 20,000 children in the United States are born with permanent hearing loss. Often this isn't discovered until the children are 3 years old and their language is noticeably delayed.

But these 20,000 children with congenital hearing loss are only the tip of the iceberg. In April 1998, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a staggering 7 million children in the United States with hearing loss significant enough to impair the ability to learn. Most of these children have temporary hearing loss, but even though the hearing loss is temporary, the impact can last a lifetime.

The most common cause for temporary hearing loss is the fluid in the middle ear space associated with ear infections. Whenever a child has an ear infection, germ-containing fluid enters the middle ear space from the back of the nose or throat.