大象传媒

Everyone loves talking to babies, but how do we know they can hear us?

Testing the hearing of babies is not easy, since they cannot tell us what they hear. A health visitor explains it is important to test a baby's hearing as soon as possible because of the impact any hearing loss can have on speech and language development. The tests are carried out when babies are roughly the same age. They must be easy to administer, not too costly and cause no pain or discomfort for the baby. The distraction test is part of this process. The baby's attention is attracted by a toy and various sounds are made behind the baby to distract it. If the baby is distracted and looks around for the noise, this generally indicates the baby can hear.