Maybe your kids really can’t hear you after all.
More than half of high school students surveyed reported at least one symptom of hearing loss associated with the use of portable music players, like iPods and other MP3 players, in a poll by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Does your child turn up the volume on the television or radio, even though everyone else can hear just fine? Does your child say “what?” or “huh?” repeatedly? Other symptoms reported included perceiving voices as muffled and tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. It’s the kind of hearing loss typically found in old people, not kids.
It could be their ear-bud headphones, according to the poll released March 14. Ear-bud headphones, like the ones typically used with iPods and other portable music players, project sound directly into the ear canal instead of the music being diffused by traditional ear-muff style headphones.
Sound levels are measured in decibels. Generally, decibel levels fewer than 80 or so are not harmful to hearing. But a blaring MP3 player can put out levels in excess of 100 decibels, and children sometimes stay plugged in for hours.
Hearing damage occurs when loud sounds destroy tiny hair cells in the inner ear. These cells convert sound waves into electrical impulses and then send them on to the brain. Destroy just 25 to 30 percent of these cells, and hearing loss occurs.
Carmen Lappen, the nurse at South Mountain High in Phoenix, is amazed the children surveyed admitted they had hearing problems. Students at her school love their iPods and MP3 players. She laughed, “They’re not going to tell me they hurt.” Lappen worries when she can hear students’ tunes, even when they’re wearing ear buds: “If I can hear it, it is way too much for their ears.”
Apple Computer Inc. has recently introduced a software update for iPods that lets parents set a maximum volume limit on the device.
Listen Up Parents
Limit the damage to your children’s ears from listening to iPods and other MP3 players by:
• Making sure your kids can hear normal conversation while listening to music through headphones.
• Limiting the amount of time they spend listening to any type of music through headphones to one hour a day. Do not let kids fall asleep listening to music on headphones.
• Setting the volume of music devices to no higher than 60 percent of the maximum.
Article by Karina Bland
Arizona Republic Newspaper (Monday, April 10, 2006)
Info from: The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health.
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