Safeguard Your Gift of Hearing

LISTEN! What do you hear? Can you hear the ticking of a clock? the hum of the air conditioner? street noises? Can you hear voices well enough to understand what is being said?

Like most of us you probably take more or less for granted this ability to hear. Nevertheless, more than 15 million people in the United States and Canada alone suffer from significant hearing loss. Life can be difficult for such ones. Hearing-impaired children, for example, often are not able to learn to speak as early as other children. And at times parents, not realizing their child has a hearing problem, yell at their child for ‘not paying attention.’ Hearing-impaired adults also have their problems. Some fear losing their job if their hearing difficulties become known. Or their marriage may suffer because of a breakdown in communication.

You can therefore appreciate that the ability to hear is really a precious gift. Says the Bible: “The hearing ear and the seeing eye​—Jehovah himself has made even both of them.” (Proverbs 20:12) How, then, can you safeguard this gift from God? Let us first take a look at how the ear actually hears.

How Do We Hear?

When you hear the gentle strains of a symphony orchestra or the sound of your child’s voice, your hearing apparatus is reacting to vibrations, or sound waves, in the air. These vibrations are measured in terms of cycles per second. And by international agreement, they have been given the name Hertz (Hz). Now the normal human ear has a range from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. This can be better understood if you realize that a piano’s lowest note is about 27 Hz and its highest note is about 4,000 Hz.

But for your ear to hear these vibrations there must be sufficient intensity. Intensity is measured in terms of decibels (db). Zero decibels has been established as the threshold of hearing (the smallest sound the normal human ear can detect). The sound of the singing bird may reach your ear at 15 db, that of a typewriter at about 60 db, the noise from a riveter at about 100 db and that from a jet plane at about 125 db, with pain in the ear resulting at about 130 db.

Your hearing mechanism is divided basically into three physical units: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear.

The outer ear collects sound and channels it through the ear canal to the eardrum in the middle ear. The vibrating drum is attached to the ossicular chain of three tiny bones called the malleus, incus and stapes. Thus the vibrations are passed on to the third part of the hearing mechanism, the inner ear. Within this marvelously complex inner ear is a winding passage called the cochlea. It resembles a snail shell. Through this cochlea pass three fluid-filled ducts that further transmit the sound vibrations to thousands of tiny hair cells. Nerve connections to these tiny hair cells convert the mechanical energy of sound vibrations to nerve impulses. These impulses are then transmitted to the brain.

The “hearing ear” is a marvel. For example, to detect the weakest sound the eardrum will deflect less than the distance of the diameter of a single atom. Yet the same eardrum is able to tolerate a million times the weakest sound!

What Can Go Wrong?

To hear normally one must be able to hear all the sounds from very low pitch to very high pitch. Further, one should be able to hear each sound at a very faint level or intensity. But at times this delicate system is impaired.

The greatest cause of hearing loss due to outer ear problems is wax impaction (which a doctor should remove) or the insertion of a foreign object into the canal. Children are often fond of putting everything from pencil erasers to beans into their ear canals. Obviously this can cause hearing loss as well as damage to the ear. The age-old proverb, “Put nothing in your ear smaller than your elbow,” is still a good guideline to teach children and adults alike.

Middle ear hearing problems are usually caused by an accumulation of fluid in the middle ear space. In time this may result in infection. Another problem is a progressive bony overgrowth of the ossicular chain, which can destroy its mobility. This, too, diminishes the hearing acuity.

When a hearing loss is associated with the outer ear or the middle ear, usually it is easy to identify because the one suffering can hear very well if others will merely talk louder. Problems with the inner ear, however, are much more complex. Disease or trauma to this part of the hearing mechanism tends to destroy the delicate nerve cells. The result is that no matter how efficiently the outer and the middle ear conduct sound vibrations to the inner ear, it is unable to transmit the sound vibrations to the brain. Hence, some sounds come through louder than others, resulting in distortion. Fortunately, most problems associated with the outer and the middle ear can be treated successfully. This is not true of the inner ear, though. While diseases of the inner ear may be treatable, destruction of the nerve system there cannot be undone.

Obviously, then, it is wise to obtain medical treatment as soon as possible when a hearing problem is discovered. Parents, especially, want to be observant when it comes to their children’s hearing. But how can you know if your child’s hearing is impaired?

Testing Your Child’s Hearing

Mothers and fathers have been instinctively testing the hearing of their newborn infants as long as there have been babies. Parents generally observe when their child becomes startled by loud noises or turns toward the source of a sound. They notice, too, if their child stops playing when strange or new sounds enter his environment. And when they cannot observe their infant showing some awareness of sound, it is time for a trip to the doctor.

Parents should likewise observe if their children respond to softer sounds, such as a ticking watch or whispered speech. If in doubt, a doctor can make a far more sophisticated test of your child’s hearing by using an audiometer. This is an instrument designed to measure which sounds the ear can hear and how softly the sounds can be heard. If a problem is detected, treatment can immediately be given. This may prevent permanent ear damage.

There is a need for balance, though. Ear problems are quite common among preadolescent children and there is no need for you to be perturbed if your child develops one. These problems generally clear up as the child grows into adolescence. Judicious concern and intervention will usually see a child through these difficult years and promote normal hearing.

Interestingly, many industries, health agencies and schools have established what are called hearing-conservation programs. The participants in these programs have their hearing tested at regular intervals. The testing identifies those who may have ear disease and those who, though not having ear disease, are predisposed to hearing loss. Possibly such a program is available in your community. If not, you may want to arrange to have your child’s hearing tested every year or two, or at any time it appears your child is not hearing well.

Preventing Hearing Loss

Of course, hearing checkups are not just for small children. If you work in a noisy environment, you should have your hearing tested regularly. True, you may have worked at your job for years without any noticeable decline in your hearing. Nevertheless, deterioration could occur at any time! Therefore, play it safe. Wear ear-protection devices, such as properly designed earplugs or even earmuffs.

If you are a teenager, your choice of music may have a profound effect on your hearing. Rock concerts, for example, often expose unwary listeners to dangerously high decibel levels. A survey of some 1,410 college freshmen revealed that more than 60 percent of them had “significant hearing loss in the high-frequency range.” Might their choice of music have been at least partly to blame?

Beware, too, of those popular, but potentially dangerous, stereo headphones. Hearing specialists were quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying that “there can be no doubt that these units have the potential for inducing a permanent . . . sensorineural hearing loss​—especially if they are used at a volume setting of four or above for extended periods.” Keeping the volume low might therefore save your hearing!

Of course, even with all these precautions, hearing loss is an unfortunate part of the aging process. At as early as 30 years of age you can begin losing your ability to hear high-pitched sounds. And each decade may bring deterioration to your ability to hear the middle and lower sounds. This can be particularly vexing to elderly people, for when the middle sounds are not clearly heard, communication becomes difficult; speech then sounds unclear, distorted. Nothing can be done medically or surgically to help the situation, although one may receive some relief by wearing a well-fitted hearing aid.

Nevertheless, one who truly appreciates the faculty of hearing will take reasonable steps to safeguard this gift: getting regular checkups, seeking medical treatment if a problem is suspected and avoiding prolonged exposure to high-decibel environments.

But what of those who have already lost some or all of their hearing? Such ones need not give up. They can take an appreciative look at all the other senses they still have and use them to their full potential. Hearing loss does not prevent a person from living a full and useful life. Far more importantly, however, they can take comfort in the Bible’s promise of a time when “the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped.” (Isaiah 35:5) This Bible text primarily points to a marvelous spiritual healing. Nevertheless, we can be confident the spiritual blessings pointed to in this prophecy will have a physical counterpart: miraculous healing for those afflicted with deafness.

The future can therefore look bright for the hearing impaired. But in the meantime, safeguard your gift of hearing. It will please the Creator of “the hearing ear.”

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No man-made listening device is as ingeniously designed as your ear

Auditory nerve

Ossicular chain

Outer Ear

Ear Canal

Eardrum

Cochlea