Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.
About Hearing Problems in Children
Most children hear and listen from the moment they are born. They learn to talk by imitating the sounds around them and the voices of their parents and caregivers. But about 2 or 3 out of every 1,000 children in the United States are born deaf or hard-of-hearing. More lose their hearing later during childhood.
Babies should have a hearing screening before they are a month old. If your child has a hearing loss, it is important to consider the use of hearing devices and other communication options by age 6 months. That's because children start learning speech and language long before they talk.
Hearing problems can be temporary or permanent. Sometimes, ear infections, injuries or diseases affect hearing. If your child does not hear well, get help.
It sits within Children and Teenagers and Ear, Nose and Throat.
The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.
Research on Hearing Problems in Children
8 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.
What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.
Research currently under way
- Preschool Hearing ScreeningUniversity of California, San Francisco
Research already completed
- Evaluating the Safety of BONEBRIDGE Implants in Children Under Five Years Old: This Study Looks at Children Under Five Who Got BONEBRIDGE BCI 602 Implants. It Collects Information on Any Problems With the Device or the Surgery to See if it is Safe Within the First Year After the Operation.MED-EL Elektromedizinische Geräte GesmbH
- Automated Measures of Speech Intelligibility Using Brain Wave RecordingsUniversitaire Ziekenhuizen KU Leuven
- Outcomes in Children With Pre-operative Residual HearingUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- "Core Stabilization Exercises in Hearing Impaired Children"Bezmialem Vakif University
Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.
Where to read more
Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.
Start Here
- Hearing Loss in ChildrenCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- Your Baby's Hearing and Communicative Development ChecklistNational Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
Diagnosis and Tests
- Hearing Tests for ChildrenNational Library of Medicine
- Screening for Hearing LossCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- Testing Baby's HearingNational Institutes of Health
Prevention and Risk Factors
- Hearing Tests (For Parents)Nemours Foundation
Living With
- Assistive Devices: MedlinePlus Health TopicNational Library of Medicine
Related Issues
- American Sign LanguageNational Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
- Building Communication SkillsCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- EarbudsNemours Foundation
- Ototoxicity (Ear Poisoning) (For Parents)Nemours Foundation
Genetics
- About Genetics and Hearing LossCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- CHARGE syndrome: MedlinePlus GeneticsNational Library of Medicine
- Deafness and myopia syndrome: MedlinePlus GeneticsNational Library of Medicine
- Thiamine-responsive megaloblastic anemia syndrome: MedlinePlus GeneticsNational Library of Medicine
Statistics and Research
- Data and Statistics About Hearing Loss in ChildrenCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
Clinical Trials
- ClinicalTrials.gov: Deafness in ChildrenNational Institutes of Health
- ClinicalTrials.gov: Hearing Disorders in ChildrenNational Institutes of Health
Medical subject headings
Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Hearing Disorders. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.
This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Hearing Problems in Children, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.