Children's Health

During routine well-child visits, the doctor uses various methods to test your child's development. You'll often answer questions about whether your child has reached milestones for his or her age. And the doctor will use your comments to assess your child's speech and language development. If your child is suspected of having a speech or language delay, the doctor will refer your child to a speech-language pathologist to have specific tests that measure nonverbal intelligence, language skills, and vocabulary.

Hearing problems can be an important cause of speech and language delays in children. For this reason, hearing tests are an essential part of any suspected speech and language developmental delay. Hearing problems that are caught and treated within 6 months after birth may help prevent some developmental problems, including those related to speech and language development.²

The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends that all newborns be screened for hearing loss.³ Most newborns in the U.S. are screened for hearing loss before leaving the hospital. Call your doctor if at any time you think your child may have a hearing problem. Even if the newborn test did not show hearing loss, hearing problems could arise.