Audiology

For babies who may have been referred from our newborn screening programme.

We place sticky pads onto your baby’s head which measure how your child’s brain responds to sounds. We do this test while your baby is naturally asleep.

For babies aged between 6 and 18 months old.

During the test your child will sit on your lap. Your child will watch one of our audiologists play with a toy.  Another audiologist will make different types of sounds from behind, to see if your child turns around or responds.

For babies and children aged between 6 and 36 months old.

During the test your child will sit on your lap. Your child will watch one of our audiologists play with a toy. We’ll play tones from loudspeakers and watch how your child responds. If they turn to the sound, we reward them with a colourful picture on a screen.

For children aged around 30 months old.

Your child will complete an action such as putting pegs in a board when they hear a sound from the handheld speaker.

For children from 36 months old.

Your child wears headphones so that we can get information from both ears individually. They complete an action, such as putting men in a toy boat when they hear a sound through their headphones. We may use a different type of headphones to detect any fluid in the ear.

For children aged 5 onwards.

Your child will sit with headphones on and press a button every time they hear a tone. It gives us information about individual ears instead of overall hearing.

We assess the flexibility of the eardrum so that sound can pass through it. It may be too rigid because of fluid behind it, for example, glue ear. This means sounds bounce back off the eardrum.

We put a small rubber tip gently in the ear canal to measure eardrum movement and look for any signs of blockages.