Caring for your child’s hearing aids

Our parents talk about their child’s hearing aids

In this video, some of our parents talk about their child’s hearing aids (and how to keep them in!).

Although it is natural for parents to become very frustrated, this is the time to keep calm. If you overreact and get excited, she may do it over and over again to get a reaction.

Calmly replace the aids in her ears – or if it is becoming an issue, simply put them aside until your child is in a more cooperative mood and you have time to keep her distracted for a while. Try and avoid getting into a battle about it.

Here again, a confident attitude of expecting your child to leave the aids alone will help.  Remember: you are in charge of the hearing aids; it is you who decides when the hearing aids are inserted and when they are removed.

For some children this stage can last quite a while. It is normal to think you will never get past it, and that your child hates their aids or something is wrong! We would like to reassure you that in time, and with you persisting, your child will tolerate her aids and wear them most of her waking day.

Keep going and know that you are doing the best for your child’s language and communication development.

Take a moment to reflect

Many many parents tell us that the process of getting their baby to wear – and keep on – their hearing aids is one of the most stressful times.

We hope it helps you to know that your baby’s reluctance to wear them is perfectly normal! Try to anticipate and be proactive with dealing with your frustration by identifying times when you and your baby are less tired, less rushed and able to spend time together.

Be realistic with what you can achieve but equally be honest and recognise those times you avoid putting your baby’s aids on. Are you keeping a positive attitude towards them or do you dread them? Your baby will be picking up on your feelings.

Securing your baby’s hearing aids

No matter how well they are fitted, it is hard to keep hearing aids secure behinds a baby’s ears because their ears are small and very flexible.

When your audiologist first fits your child’s hearing aids, he or she will have made sure that the outer ear is free of infection; the ear mould is a comfortable fit; the tubing is cut to the right length and the hook that links the tubing with the hearing aid is the appropriate size for small ears. The hearing aids should therefore sit neatly behind your child’s ears.However, it is likely your child is very young and that even baby hearing aids seem a little weighty on such small ears. There are options available to help you keep your child’s hearing aids secure and stop them ‘flapping’ too much.

Remember, the idea is for your baby to barely notice she is wearing them, so making them as comfortable as possible has got to be a good approach! These are some of the methods other parents have used. They won’t all work for your child, so you might need to try a few!

• ‘Stick and stay’ tape
  • This is specially double-sided sticky tape that you can use to keep the hearing aid close to your baby’s head. Cut a small strip and stick it on the back of each hearing aid. Lift your child’s hair out of the way, remove the backing from the tape and press it gently against your child’s head.
  • You will need to replace the tape each time you put the aids back on.  If your audiologist or teacher of the deaf do not supply the tape, you can purchase it from most chemists.
• Hearing aid rings or ‘huggies’
  • Hearing aid rings (sometimes known as ‘huggies’) are another technique to help keep aids in place.
  • These are circles of soft transparent tubing that are cut and joined to fit snuggly around the child’s ear, with one or two bands that go around the hearing aid (but must not cover the microphones) to keep it in place.
  • The ‘huggies’ complete the circle of the hearing aid around the ear and keep them a little more secure. Again, your team of professionals might supply these rings, or you may need to purchase them from through hearing aid companies.
  • Please note, this is a picture of a huggy on a cochlear implant, not a hearing aid, but the same approach applies.
• Clips
  • When your child pulls off her hearing aids, it is then very easy to lose them!
  • You might like to consider using a clip which at one end splits into two with a band on each which attaches to the hearing aids and at the other end has a clip which clips to your child’s clothes.
  • This way, if the hearing aids come out, they should at least remain attached to your child! Some hearing aid companies include this type of cord and clip in their initial care kit. Your audiologist or teacher for the deaf may provide you with one of these or you may need to buy one direct from one of the manufacturers.
• Headbands
  • For very small babies and toddlers, you might want to introduce a stretchy headband which goes over the hearing aids (it should be one with holes in to keep the microphones exposed).
  • You can usually find these at any large chemist or hair accessory shop. Don’t worry, this is not for ever, and your child will probably work out how to take off the headband as well! However, it gives you valuable time to reach your child and keep them occupied before they succeed in removing their hearing aids!
• Baby bonnets
  • Some parents choose to use a light-weight baby bonnet tied securely under the chin. Again the microphones need to be accessible so it should be made from a material that is soft and meshed.
  • These are all temporary accessories to help you reach your goal of keeping your baby’s hearing aids on.  In time these issues will be a thing of the past with discrete hearing aids sitting neatly behind her ear, probably covered in hair. This is a tricky stage to be worked through, but it must be done!

Have you got everything you need?

When your audiologist first issued your child’s hearing aids they will have given you a pack of items that help you look after them. This is likely to include: a battery tester, spare batteries, a hearing aid stethoscope or listening device, a puffer, a drying-out pot and drying-out capsules. If you are missing any of these items, ask for them!

Daily hearing aid check

It’s a good idea to follow this routine at the start of each day so that this becomes a habit.

Daily hearing aid checks

In this video, Rachel Mills, Preschool Teacher of the Deaf at The Elizabeth Foundation demonstrates daily checks for hearing aids – demonstrated by .

1. Check the batteries are working

Turn the hearing aids on and cup them in your hands. If they whistle then you know that the batteries are working OK.

Get into the habit of doing this regularly through the day as hearing aid batteries can go at any time and you do not want your child wearing aids that are not working. The time will come when your child will tell you one is not working but until that point they are reliant on you checking.

If you have been supplied with a hearing aid tester you can use this as it will usually tell you the level of charge remaining in the battery. But if you don’t have one, simply cupping the hearing aid in your hand is a quick and simple way to check that the batteries are workng.

2. Examine the ear mould and tubing

Make sure the ear mould is not cracked or torn and that it is not clogged up with wax.  A build-up of wax in the tubing of the mould will prevent sound reaching your baby’s ears. You may have been supplied with a small tool with a smooth hook on the end. Or other audiologists supply a device with tiny tubes which can be inserted in the end of the mould to hook out the wax.

Important: Do not be tempted to remove wax from your baby’s ear using cotton wool buds. You will only push it further into the canal. For more information about wax see below.

3. Puff out any condensation

Condensation in the tubing can affect the sound your child hears. If you can see condensation, remove the tubing from the hearing aid (leaving the mould attached) and use the puffer to push air down the tubing and dry it out, then reattach it to the hearing aid.

Putting the hearing aids in their drying-out pot regularly at night will help keep condensation to a minimum (see below).

4. Listen to the hearing aid

Using a stethoscope or listening tube, switch the hearing aid on and listen to the quality of sound coming through your child’s hearing aid.

If your child is severely or profoundly deaf then your own hearing needs to be protected when listening to loud amplified sounds. Some stethoscopes include an attenuator which reduces (or ‘attenuates’) the sound level so it is safe for your ears. The attenuator squeezes the tubing, reducing the level of noise passing through.  You can roll the attenuator so that the sound levels are comfortable for you to listen to when checking the aid.

Using the Ling Six Sound Test

The best way to test the hearing aids is by using the Ling Six Sound Test. This uses the following six sounds to cover the typical pitch of speech from low to high frequency:

1. ah – as in father
2. oo – as in moon
3. ee – as in key
4. mm – as in Mummy
5. ss – as in sock
6. sh –  as in show

By listening to your own voice repeating the Ling Sounds through the hearing aid everyday, you will soon be able to assess and compare the quality of the sound that your child is hearing.

Hold the hearing aid 10-20cm from your mouth and repeat the Ling Sounds at normal conversational level whilst gently moving the hearing aid and ear mould around.  Listen for any crackles or breaks in transmission, check connections are good and check that the hearing aid casing and battery compartment are not cracked or broken.

When you listen to your child’s hearing aids, they should always sound clear to you.  On occasion, you might find that they sound fuzzy or distorted.  Any time there is a change in the quality of the sounds you hear, it is very important that you ask your hearing care professional to check the hearing aids immediately. Your child needs consistently good amplification in order to develop spoken language.

If you listen every day you will quickly get used to the way the hearing aids sound to you, and you will be able to detect more confidently when something is not right.

5. Test the hearing aids on your child

In the early days, testing whether the hearing aids are working when your child is wearing them may be a case of noticing quite subtle changes in behaviour between when they are wearing the hearing aids and when they are not.

In many cases, however, you may not notice any immediate differences as your baby needs to learn to listen through the hearing aids. In older children, the difference will be more noticeable and occur more quickly. Initially you might notice your child startle or still to loud sounds when she is wearing her hearing aids, or she might vocalise more. Later she might turn to locate sounds. In time you will see more and more.

The important thing is that you learn to identify when your child’s behaviour changes. The more you notice how your baby reacts, the more likely you are to notice a change in her behaviour which might indicate a problem with her hearing aids. This is far from being a perfect science, but you will be amazed how quickly you are able to identify problems.