Pediatrics: Hearing Help

(2 of 2)

Such a world is not necessary, argues Dr. Ciwa Griffiths, founder-director of Los Angeles' HEAR Foundation. Not a medical doctor, she got her degree in education, and has worked with the deaf for decades. Dr. Griffiths recommends hearing aids for children as early as possible, even at 30 days old. Even for rubella babies, the results can be encouraging. Dull infants often become alert and animated when fitted with aids. Many—though by no means all-learn to speak almost normally and are able to attend regular schools. It is a technique much used in Europe.

For the child whose deafness is not caused by rubella or inherited deficiencies, Dr. Griffiths reports an even more startling success. Three-fourths of the infants who are fitted with hearing aids before the age of nine months, she reports, achieve unaided hearing by the age of one. A number of medical people dispute her findings, argue that the children may not have been accurately diagnosed as deaf in the first place. But Dr. Griffiths counters that the diagnoses were not done by her, but by outside doctors. She has no knowledge of how the improvement is accomplished. Perhaps the hearing aid in this early period stimulates the immature hearing mechanism and encourages functional development of the neural pathways, instead of allowing a mute acceptance of the deficiency.