4MyEars

According to a recent post on Lifehacker, you should clean your Earbuds for both better sound and better hygiene.

“Earbuds can get dirty surprisingly fast, especially if you use in-ear earbuds—the sealed design increases the heat in the ear canal and leads to more ear wax and oils accumulating on the bud. You can’t just dunk them in water and shake them around however, especially if you spend big bucks on them to please your audiophile ears.”

From there they recommend several options of gentle cleansers, but surprisingly, they also recommend using a dry soft bristle toothbrush, the very same method we recommend for cleaning hearing aids.

Excerpt- “The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), has called upon New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reverse his administration’s decision to cancel routine public school hearing screenings, but so far the request seems to have fallen on deaf ears.” ﾠRead Full Article at Hearing Review

As a parent I would be very concerned with this decision. Untreated hearing loss of a child is much more serious than that of an adult. It can severely impact their communication skills, which in turn greatly reduces their academic abilities. The same communication difficulties lead to social isolation and poor self image, even affecting their whole life course. The earlier the hearing loss is caught, the less serious the impact on a child’s development.