Pediatric Services

Diagnostics and Treatment

Early diagnosis and treatment of hearing problems in infants and children are important for their developing speech and language skills. At Shohet Ear Doctors in Orange County, we strive to make the diagnosis and treatment of your child’s hearing problems as kid-friendly as possible. We offer a complete range of Pediatric Audiometric Evaluations, including:

Conventional Audiometry: Helps determine if there is a hearing loss, and to what degree, by traditional audiometric methods. Typically offered for children 5 years and older.

Behavioral Observation Audiometry: Obtains simple behavioral responses to auditory signals to determine the presence or absence of hearing loss. Ideal for infants and children from birth to two years of age.

Visual Reinforcement Audiometry: Obtains more frequency specific information. Typically used for children aged 12-30 months. The child is coached to look where the incoming signal is and then rewarded with a lighted animated toy.

Conditioned Play Audiometry: This test is a fun yet effective way to obtain frequency-specific hearing thresholds by conditioning a child to play a game when they hear the sounds. Used for children 3-5 years of age.

Other diagnostic tests that may be used to evaluate your child’s hearing include:

Tympanometry: Provides specific information on the status of the middle ear.

Standard Auditory Brainstem Response testing (ABR) - This diagnostic tool is one of the first steps taken to helping us identify if a child has hearing loss and the degree.

Multiple Auditory Steady State Evoked Response (MASTER) - also known as ASSR
Never before has there been a method to obtain objective frequency specific auditory information quickly and effectively without participation from the patient. A state-of-the-art diagnostic tool, steady state response testing assesses multiple frequencies at the same time as well as both ears, significantly reducing testing time. Our Orange County hearing treatment center is one of few ear doctors in Orange County to offer ASSR.

Otoacoustic emissions (OAE) - Two types of OAE’s are offered by our Orange County hearing treatment program: Transient Otoacoustic Emissions and Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions, which measure cochlear hair cell function. These tests are excellent ways for us to estimate hearing without any participation from the child or adult.

Treatment of Hearing Conditions

Hearing aids

At Shohet Ear Associates in Orange County, Southern California we offer the most technologically advanced hearing aids and customize each fit to meet your child’s unique needs. We have an extensive selection of hearing aids in fun colors and accessories specifically for children, along with information booklets for both parents and teachers. We like to make wearing a hearing aid fun! We also offer story books to help parents or caregivers teach their children about hearing loss. Our pediatric Orange County hearing treatment program is dedicated to giving our patients a comfortable experience.

Assistive listening devices (ALD’s)

Many patients, adults and children, need additional assistance in order to maximize their listening environment. At Shohet Ear Associates, we offer the latest assistive listening devices to meet these needs. Amplified telephones, amplified headsets for cell phone usage, television amplification and alerting devices are just a few ALD’s we offer. We also have state of the art FM systems for children. An FM system can help a child dramatically in a classroom or other noisy environments by obtaining input directly from the source while reducing all other background.

Cochlear implantation

A full battery of audiological testing is conducted to determine your child’s candidacy for cochlear implants. For those with a severe to profound hearing loss in both ears, cochlear implants may be the solution. Cochlear implants allow many patients to hear actual sounds and improve their communication. They consist of a combination internal computer chip and an electrode coupled with an external speech processor. They are surgically implanted by Dr. Shohet at our Orange County hearing treatment center and programmed in our office by a clinical audiologist. The FDA-approved age for cochlear implantation is 12 months of age and older. Other criteria will be used to determine your child’s candidacy as well.

FM Technology

In today’s noisy world, optimizing your child’s hearing aid fitting may not be enough. Although great strides have been made to customize hearing aids with precision, they cannot adequately increase the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) to ensure speech understanding in all listening environments. Listening situations such as classrooms or auditoriums involves distance, reverberation and noise, putting the hearing impaired child at a strong disadvantage. FM technology can significantly improve the desired input while reducing the surrounding noise. This will optimize your child’s language input maximizing their chances for normal speech and language development and improve their communication abilities. Visit our Orange County hearing treatment offices or contact us directly for more information.

FM receivers can be used alone or coupled with a hearing instrument or cochlear implant. FM systems also allow the user to select between 3 different microphone modes: Omnidirectional (surround sound), directional and super directional modes. Directional mode allows the user to cut back some of the background noise from behind. Super directional allows the user to set the FM system to decrease unwanted noise from behind and\or from the sides. We will discuss the available options with you to help optimize your child’s hearing.