Hearing (Audiology) Service

Based at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, our Hearing (Audiology) Service sees children to assess and manage their hearing and balance problems.

Sheffield Children’s is one of only 19 paediatric audiology services out of 134 across the country to achieve IQIPS (Improving Quality in Physiological Services) accreditation.

Conditions

The types of conditions we treat are:

• conductive and sensorineural hearing loss
• auditory processing
• balance conditions
• wax removal for hearing aid users

If you are concerned about your child’s hearing please see your GP, school nurse, health visitor or speech and language therapist.

Services and special interests

• Hearing assessment:
  • Range of hearing tests for all ages
  • Speech testing
• Hearing Aid Service:
  • Fitting of most types of hearing aids, including bone conduction aids and CROS and BiCROS aids
• Bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) service:
  • Surgery
  • BAHA fitting and review at the hospital.
• Tinnitus rehabilitation
• Auditory processing screening and management
• Vestibular (balance organ) testing including rotating chair testing, and Vestibular Rehabilitation
• Transition onto adult service

The latest hearing aid technology

Children who need a hearing aid can get the latest digital technology available to the NHS in a choice of colours and even add their favourite character or football team to the ear mould!

These are set up and monitored for as long as your child is under our service by qualified paediatric Audiologists.

Links

The newborn hearing screening programme (NHSP) tests children up to three months of age and is based at the Jessop Wing of Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. If a baby is found to have a hearing loss from the newborn hearing screen, further investigation and management is offered by the children’s hearing services department.

We have excellent links with the education service and visit Sheffield hearing impaired units weekly to provide a hearing aid and ear mould service.  All children that meet the criteria are referred to the Service for Hearing Impaired Children (SHIC) service in order for them to get help at school by a teacher of the deaf.

We also have close links with the Sheffield Deaf Children’s Society (SDCS) who run a deaf youth club, family play sessions for under 10s and other events throughout the year.

Medical audiology service

The medical audiology service is provided for children with any degree of permanent childhood hearing impairment. Clinics are usually undertaken by a community paediatrician with a specialist interest in audiology, an audiologist and an assistant audiologist.  On occasion a Teacher of the Deaf or a specialist heath visitor may also be present. The purpose of this clinic is to carry out aetiological investigations to look into the possible cause of your child’s hearing loss.  Investigations such as an Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), electrocardiograms (ECG), urine analysis and ophthalmology assessment will need to be carried out.

In some cases the cause of your child’s hearing loss may still be unknown. However if the cause is found this can help us with the management of your child’s hearing loss and look at the options available to your child in the future. We work closely alongside other departments such as Ear Nose and Throat and Speech and Language Therapy as well as the Sheffield Children’s Hearing Impaired Teachers. We also aim to work closely alongside Cochlear Implants centres in the region.

Training

We deliver training to degree students from speech and language therapy and audiology courses and also regularly give lectures to medical students.