Hearing assessment

• If you feel you can’t hear or understand conversations well, especially on the phone or in noisy environments (cafés, restaurants, public transport, etc.).
• If you need to look at your interlocutor’s lips when he or she speaks, or have words or sentences repeated.
• If those around you complain about the volume of the radio or television, and you don’t respond to the call.
• If you have tinnitus (whistling, buzzing) in one or both ears.
• If you systematically change sides to answer the phone.
• If you suffer from vertigo, a hearing test is also recommended.
• If your infant doesn’t startle, turn his or her head, or move his or her eyes and body in response to loud noises.
• If your child doesn’t speak very well, or makes syllable errors.
• If your child’s teacher talks about attention problems in class, or behavior problems with other children.
• If your child’s school results drop unexplained.

A hearing test carried out by an ENT specialist will enable us to accurately identify the degree and type of hearing loss, and propose an appropriate solution..

In the consultation room, ideally with a soundproof audiometric booth for standard examinations.
OEAPs and PEAs must be performed on a calm or sleeping child, making them delicate in the usual consultation room.

The hearing assessment for cooperative adults and children comprises several stages:

• Otoscopy, clinical examination of the external auditory canals and eardrums, ideally performed with the aid of a microscope, which first cleans the auditory canal of any earwax plugs and then allows any abnormalities to be accurately observed.
• Tympanometry, which indirectly explores the flexibility of the eardrum, the ossicles and the auditory tube (known as the Eustachian tube), a bony and membranous canal that ventilates the inside of the ears and balances pressures with the outside.
• Acoumetry with one or more tuning forks is now rarely used.
• Audiometry, tonal (listening to pure tones) and vocal (listening to and repeating disyllabic words) which will explore your hearing. Stimulating sounds are delivered by air, using headphones, or by bone, using a vibrator placed behind the ear. Children who are too young for standard audiometry can be referred to a specialized center, where appropriate behavioral audiometry tests can be performed..
  An auditory assessment can also be carried out at birth, with a search for induced acoustic emissions (OEAP), especially if the newborn was in intensive care at birth (premature < 34 weeks, birth weight less than 2kg, severe respiratory pathology, neonatal asphyxia), has been infected with the rubella virus or CMV during pregnancy, has received ototoxic treatments (aminoglycosides, diuretics), has a family history of deafness before the age of 50, or has a craniofacial malformation. If OEAPs are present, the hearing loss will be a maximum of 35 db on conversational frequencies, but there may also be no loss at all, so this is reassuring. Rapid referral to a hyperspecialized referral center and auditory evoked potentials (AEP) may be required in the event of bilaterally absent OEAPs.