Early Ears was designed by audiology experts to help you detect hearing loss in your child. Many young children have a hearing difficulty due to “glue ear” - a build up of fluid in the middle ear. This can be temporary and is usually not painful, but an unnoticed hearing difficulty can lead to delays in speech and language development, and educational problems. The hearing test is particularly suitable for 2 to 8 year olds, but can also be used with older children.

Early Ears presents simple instructions at various sound levels, such as “touch the cow”, and will take your child about 1 to 3 minutes to complete depending on their age and level of hearing difficulty. The results are personalised to your child and given in an easy-to-understand way. Early Ears also provides reassuring information about the common causes of hearing difficulty in children and how you can protect your child’s hearing.

The Early Ears test is based on the McCormick Toy Test and has been developed in conjunction with Professor Barry McCormick OBE. The standard test has been used in most paediatric audiology clinics in the UK since 1977. A complete description of the clinical test is given in McCormick (2003) “Paediatric audiology 0-5 years”, Wiley-Blackwell.