Some of the best moments from when the kids were little is when I would speak to them and they'd start smiling, bye bye kai is just about three months old right here.

He's totally responding to the sound of my voice.

Yes.

And as time goes on he gets even better at hearing.

But I want to know how this development works and what I can do to help things along.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

Anatomically are structurally the ear is fully developed.

When an infant is born, the inner ear starts to develop first followed by middle ear and then the outer ear, the hearing nerve is also developed.

But the nerve fibers in the hearing are very rudimentary.

They're not fully developed at work.

So basically babies are born with fully functioning ears ready to go and take in sound.

In fact they can start listening at 18 weeks in Utero.

But to be clear, we're not just looking at the Ears when it comes to building.

Those sensory skills.

Were also looking at the brain.

So the maturation of the nerve fibers in their hearing system as well as the development of processing in the brain occurs with exposure to sound.

After an infant is born.

Uh What does that mean exactly?

You could think of an infant's hearing system as a seed which needs that auditory stimulate rich environment all of the sounds in the environment for early sprouting.

But it's through these repeated exposures to different kinds of sounds that the nerve fibers start to develop.

But it's the exposure to sound that allows the maturation of that pathway, the neural development that ultimately leads to speech language development.

I got a I feel like with my first child, I feel like I was talking to him through telepathy than actual words, which makes sense because that was my one child that had a speech delay.

Whereas my younger kids, they are surrounded with speech, whether it be me talking to them, asking them how their day is, even before they could actually respond or whether it's their older siblings talking to them now.

No child will be the same after four of them.

I would know.

But there is a timeline to follow along with.

In the early months of life, the child should be able to respond or startled by loud sounds.

So if the baby is asleep and there is a loud, sudden sound that should wake up the child when we think about 4 to 7 months of 4 to 6 months of age, babies at this stage will start to turn to sounds a little bit.

They will also start to respond to pleasure or displeasure by creating sounds themselves.

Like babies will start to giggle a little the next stage group probably around in the 7 to 11 months or one year of age this day, we start to see early signs of what we call deceptive language development.

They may also start to indicate by gestures like simple, like high fives and bye byes.

So they'll start to understand language more.

Now let's back up all the way back to the hospital when and if it is born they go through the standard screening process and hearing is one of the things doctors check.

And even if they passed the first test babies will continue to get tested at every checkup visit you have with the pediatrician.

So these milestones really help us know if our baby is on track with their ability to hear and respond to sound.

If you do notice that your little one isn't hitting milestones it's worth mentioning it to their doctor with about 1.7 and 1000 births in the U.

S.

Results in hearing loss in that category.

Kids that are born with hearing loss about 40% of the times.

It's some sort of environmental cause about 15 to 25% of those are due to cmu.

I wasn't aware of the things that actually cause hearing loss.

Especially in young kids like me getting older.

Yes my hearing is on its way out of the door.

But as far as in little kids like knowing that general C.

M.

V.

That one of its most common symptoms is hearing loss completely unaware of.

But I think that's a lot with parenting is that if your child isn't going through it you aren't aware of all the possibilities and things that somebody else might be going through and when I talk about identification.

There are essentially two things that we're looking at.

We're looking at what is the degree of hearing loss and what is the type of loss.

And after we have identified the degree and type of hearing loss, a child is usually referred to a pediatric otolaryngologist to help further with medical diagnosis in terms of origins of hearing loss is the cause reversible treatable et cetera.

Uh they both are soothed by music.

Right?

So when the doctor talks about a degree of hearing loss, she's actually referring to what I learned is called the decibel scale for Children.

What we consider normal is about 0 to 15 DB HL is considered a normal range and then 71 to 90 is severe hearing loss.

And beyond that is considered a profound here.

Now, if a baby doesn't fall within what they consider a normal hearing range, there are so many resources that are available to caregivers and Children.

When a child is identified as an infant, they are connected to early start services.

That is a team of interventionists, behavioral therapist, speech language therapists that are working with the family in providing support in any way that the family or child may need.

When the child turns three, then they receive all support services to the school district.

Secondly, I want you to know that if your child as a hearing loss, your child will still be able to have a very fulfilling childhood as well as his adult life And you can have a village of professionals as well as a support system that will be your partner through this process.

And don't forget about the family, friends and anyone else in your network.

That can help thank you for watching seeker baby.

I'm Angel Akita more and I hope you're learning as much about babies as I am.

If there's a baby topic, you want us to cover, leave us a comment and keep coming back to seeker for more on babies.

See you next time.