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Infant Hearing Program

The Ontario Infant Hearing Program provides screening, early identification, and treatment of hearing loss in infants, toddlers, and preschool children as part of province-wide programming from the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, These services are provided at no cost.

The H. A. Leeper Clinic is one of the service provider agencies for the Ontario IHP, and home to a team of audiologists who provide infant hearing assessments and hearing aid services from ages birth through six. All of our audiologists are registered members of the College of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists of Ontario (CASLPO). Some of our audiologists provide community outreach and/or professional training in the areas of infant hearing assessment, toddler hearing assessment, and hearing aid fitting for infants and toddlers. We work in conjunction with the Child Amplification Laboratory to develop and test new protocols, and to provide province-wide training on hearing aid protocols.

Is your baby coming here for a hearing test?

You and your baby are coming to see us for a hearing assessment. This is a more detailed follow up to the hearing screening that you may have already had. Some simple steps can help us to get a more complete result.

If your baby is under 6 months of age and undergoing Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) testing then they must be asleep for the test, so please:

Do:  keep the baby awake for a few hours before the test so that s/he arrives tired
Do:  have a companion with you to help keep the baby awake in the car
Do:  arrive with the baby hungry, so that the baby can be fed just before the test starts. This will help him or her fall asleep more easily.

For older children who are scheduled for Visual Reinforcement Audiometry (VRA) testing, parents should ensure that the child is well rested and is familiar with having their ears touched in anticipation of the testing.

Our clinic has soft lighting, a quiet room, and a comfortable crib for the baby to sleep in during the hearing assessment. Please remember that if the baby does not sleep during the test, another appointment may have to be made in order to complete the testing. Once the hearing assessment results are complete, the IHP audiologist will discuss the results with you in detail. The audiologist will explain how hearing works, what sounds the baby can hear and might not hear, and how any hearing loss may affect the development of language. They will also explain to you the further support services that are available through the program.

Because the Ontario Infant Hearing Program is offered province wide, more information on our special program is available at the MCYS’s infant hearing website and a provincial resource website hosted by Mt. Sinai hospital in Toronto. Please visit! For general information on pediatric hearing and pediatric audiology services, we also recommend the babyhearing.org site, although some of the information is specific to the United States.

Still have questions? Please contact us.

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