Audiovestibular medicine

On this page you will find information about hearing services for children at the Trust, how we provide them and how you can access these services.  Our main aim is to help every child by identifying hearing impairment as early as possible so that appropriate management can help reduce disability and prevent handicap.

Our team

Our team consists of a consultant audiovestibular physician, speciality doctor, trained Senior paediatric audiologists and a registered trained nurse. As a team we are dedicated to making your child feel comfortable as well as keeping you informed throughout.  We also work closely with the speech and language therapists and teachers of the deaf, who are available to provide advice to parents /carers and teachers in schools.

Our services

We offer a comprehensive service for audiological assessment, management of hearing loss, hearing aid provision and medical investigations to determine the possible causes of hearing and balance problems for children from birth to 19 years age (16 to 19 if in full time education or have special needs).

The following services are provided by our team:

• Testing the hearing of newborn babies who do not pass the newborn hearing screening
• We offer initiation of medical investigations for children with permanent hearing loss
• Establishing  children at high risk (e.g. infants who were born prematurely and were very ill with sepsis and /or meningitis)  have no hearing loss
• Monitoring children with permanent hearing loss and children who have specific medical needs which necessitates their hearing level to be monitored
• Ascertaining children have normal hearing if there is a delay in their speech and language development including children with syndromes, autistic spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Where there are concerns regarding hearing e.g. presence of glue ear
• Offer support for children living in east and north Hertfordshire who require hearing aids
• Children who have increased sensitivity to sounds
• Advice for those who have normal hearing levels, but difficulties understanding what is being said