![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
Abstract
The measurement of hearing in young children can hardly be made with scientific accuracy. Young children are not able to pay attention for long, or taking interest in a set task and they are often opposing. That is why we welcome any method which allows us to test the hearing capacity of children aged from one to three, by letting us see their free reactions to sound stimuli.
The child is sitting by its mother, or on its mother's lap — and is playing with toys. Meanwhile a sound source is activated. If the child hears it, it turns to it, and the instrument is then given to play with. The same experiment is done again with another instrument. The child is conditioned to hearing by the pleasure it gets in handling a new toy.
The noises have to be unusual. Their frequency and intensity in similar conditions must be known. The range of frequencies go from 50 to 6000 or even to 8000 cps.
The hearing test may be completed by vocal sounds imitating cries of animals (cat, dog, donkey, cow, pig, goat, duck), the intensity being between 75 and 90 decibels. It is possible to produce the sounds in a softer voice and also with a stronger intensity by amplifying a tape recording. At each cry the child is given the image of the animal imitated — or a drawing of the animal is made for the child.
Any room is suitable for the test. This test is quite harmless and provides an easy “detecting method”.
The actual audiogram will be made later on when the child is able to give accurate answers.