Hesperian Health Guides
Is a hearing aid a good choice for your family?
HealthWiki > Helping Children Who Are Deaf > Appendix A: Hearing Aids > Is a hearing aid a good choice for your family?
If you are trying to decide whether a hearing aid is right for your child, you must think about:
- where your child will get hearing tests
- how much a hearing aid will cost
Your child's hearing must be tested by someone who is trained and has testing equipment. Information from the test is used to set the hearing aid so it will make sounds the right loudness for your child. He will need to be tested every year.
Here are some questions to consider:
Can we afford the testing?
Testing can be expensive. Some places, however, offer
testing free or at low cost.
Can we afford a hearing aid, and new earmolds
and batteries?
Hearing aids are expensive to begin with, but buying the aid is not the only cost. A child between the ages of 2 and 6 will need a new earmold about every 6 months because his ears are growing fast. The earmold must fit well, otherwise the hearing aid will not work correctly.
In some places, the government may have programs to give free or low-cost hearing aids to all children who need them. Try contacting the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, or a school for the deaf. But such programs are not available everywhere.
You may need new batteries every week or every couple of months. How often you need new batteries depends on how many hours each day your child wears his hearing aid, the type of hearing aid he has, and the kind of batteries he uses. Some countries provide them free.
Can we check the hearing aid every day and take care of it?
I got
wet.
Hearing aids need to be checked every morning to make sure the batteries and the aid are working well. The earmolds also need to be washed and dried regularly so that dirt will not block sound from getting to the ear.
And hearing aids must be handled carefully. If the aid gets wet, or is dropped, it may break or need repair.