Pediatric Hearing Care

Calgary, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie & High River
Hearing Aids for Children in Calgary and Around Alberta

The team of audiologists at Soundwave Hearing Care is devoted to family hearing services, offering pediatric hearing care in Calgary for children of all ages from infants to adolescents. Parents trust us to have up-to-date information about children’s hearing and its vital importance to their child’s language, intellectual and social development. Soundwave Hearing Care is your professional support in protecting your child’s hearing as well as identifying and treating hearing disorders. One of the few pediatric hearing clinics in the Calgary, High River, Grande Prairie, and Lethbridge areas, we partner with families, schools, health care providers, and speech therapists. Contact us for hearing services – from hearing tests to hearing aids – for children.

Important Hearing Milestones

Birth to Age 3

The first hearing test that your child should have is a newborn hearing screening before your precious new one leaves the hospital with you. Why so soon? The ability to hear is the basis of many important developmental processes that humans go through in the first 3 years of life, including emotional bonding and socialization. Your baby or toddler is not only soaking in the physical world through hearing but also interacting with you and learning a language.

Issues with hearing at birth can affect 1 to 3 of every 1,000 babies, and other causes – from ear infections to certain medications – account for other hearing losses in youngsters. Here are important developmental milestones parents should notice from a child with healthy hearing, with some flexibility for individual differences:

Birth to 3 Months

Startled by loud noises
Responds to your voice
Smiles at you and coos
Different cries for different needs – hungry, dirty, cranky

4 to 6 Months

Babbles and makes different sounds
Looks for sources of sounds
Responds to music and noisy toys
Makes sounds back when you talk
Enjoys games and social interactions

7 to 12 Months

Correctly locates sound sources
Responds to his/her name
Pays attention to your speech
Follows simple directions
Vocalizes and gestures to ask for things
Understands and waves hi and goodbye

12 to 18 Months

Uses and puts together simple words
Enjoys stories and being read to
Watches your face when you speak
Points to pictures in books and other objects when asked

18 to 24 Months

Uses 2-word phrases
Growing receptive vocabulary – known but not spoken words
Follows speech and interacts with others
Forms simple questions

2 to 3 Years

Can form sentences of 3 or more words
Answers simple, concrete questions
Takes part in short conversations
Follows 2-part directions – “get your shirt and put it on”
Understands spatial concepts – location, in/on, up/down

When You Need Pediatric Hearing Care in Calgary

As you can see, hearing not only builds emotional and physical connections to the world but also helps develop learning ability and social intelligence through understanding and acquiring language. Years before children enter kindergarten or write their names, they are learning to decode and produce speech. Is your child having difficulty understanding spoken words, not speaking by age 12 months, or only responding to very loud sounds? If you suspect your child has trouble hearing, consulting an audiologist is also a first step in intervening with speech, language, and learning problems that arise from hearing loss.

Soundwave Hearing Care invites you to contact us to learn more about our hearing tests for children in Calgary, Lethbridge, High River or Grande Prairie. What if your child needs a hearing aid? Our audiologists are experienced in fitting a range of assistive listening devices and hearing aids for infants, children and students.