While many of us believe that hearing loss is an inevitable sign of getting older, progressing hearing decline these days is often due to loud noise exposure – especially for children.
More and more young people are having struggles with their hearing as the world gets louder, and noise-induced hearing loss has skyrocketed to become the second-most common cause of hearing loss.
When we think of noise-induced hearing loss, our guess is that you think of a sudden, one-time noise event, like a gunshot or an explosion, that damages the eardrum in one blast. However, that’s not the way most people damage their hearing.
Most noise-induced hearing loss is due to listening to loud noise over long periods of time.
The Silent Epidemic
How long does your child sit listening to music or watching videos on their phone or tablet? Does your child attend concerts or live events or take part in sports games at school?
We often don’t realize how damaging these things can be to our hearing, let alone our children’s hearing. Nobody wants to be the uncool parent and tell their kids to turn the volume down, but for the sake of their hearing, it might be the role you have to play.
We measure sound in decibels (dB). Anything over 85 dB can be damaging to our hearing, and the amount of time we can listen to loud sounds decreases as the sound gets louder.
For instance, the Apple AirPods Max—one of the best-selling earphones on the market currently—can produce a maximum volume of 100 dB. Just twenty minutes of continuous listening to music at 100 dB is enough to cause damage to our hearing.
As parents ourselves, we know that the best for our children is all we want to ensure their happiness and good health. While blasting music or watching videos on personal devices can make them happy, it may not be very healthy – for their brains or their ears.
While we may instinctively panic about our child’s hearing being at risk, there could be other reasons for your child not paying attention at home or at school, like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or another attention span issue.
For concerns about hearing, our pediatrics team at Holland Hearing can help alleviate your worries with a hearing test for your child, ensuring a comfortable and stress-free experience.
Concerned About Your Child’s Hearing?
Our pediatric hearing services work with your child (and you as their parent) to assess their hearing and understand why they don’t respond as they used to. We’re happy to work with your child’s needs, including explaining things in language accessible to them and lengthening appointment times for their comfort and focus.
If you’d like to explore pediatric hearing care with us, please request a callback, and we’ll get in touch as soon as we can to help.
Don’t want to wait? Call us to schedule an appointment at (325) 437-4730.
