Unless you look for signs of deafness or hearing impairment in a newborn, they can be easy to miss.
Many parents do, resulting in a late diagnosis by doctors.
That can mean a serious lag behind in the child's language development. There are at least two easy, inexpensive and painless tests available today that can spot hearing loss in newborns within days or even hours of birth. Twenty states now require such testing. Dr. Howard Francis says the remaining thirty should follow suit. I think that newborn testing really makes a big difference in the life of a child who's identified early to have hearing loss.