Daily Device Check

01What is this guide for?

The child arrives with the device on, the indicator light is lit, and the family says there is no problem. None of that shows the device is working. A device fault is usually silent: the sound does not cut out, it drops; high frequencies disappear; the signal comes and goes. Children rarely report this — least of all young children and children with additional needs.

This guide covers the two- to three-minute device check at the start of every session, the steps to follow when something is wrong, and which problems are solved on the spot and which call for a referral. It is limited to behind-the-ear hearing aids and cochlear implant sound processors; no brand names are used.

02Why check every day?

The answer rests not on clinical intuition but on measurements that have been repeated for decades.

What stands out in the table is that the figures have not fallen over the years. Devices went digital and cochlear implants became widespread; the rate measured in preschool settings is nonetheless no different from what was measured in the 1980s. The question in the title of the 2011 study makes exactly this point.

In practice: roughly one child in three has a device that is not working as expected on the day it is checked.

Most faults are simple and preventable

The bulk of these problems are not complex technical failures. Wax, moisture and blockage account for most of them. A finding from the cochlear implant field makes this even clearer: one in five sound processors returned for poor sound quality turns out to be working perfectly, the problem usually being microphone covers that were never replaced. In other words, a good share of what looks like "the device is broken" is a blockage that two minutes of maintenance would have prevented.

Where the check belongs in the session

If you begin a session without verifying that the device works, you are working without knowing what the child hears that day. To tell why a sound was missed in the Ling 6 sound test, you first have to be sure the device is sound; reverse the order and there is no way to tell whether the problem lies with the child or with the device.

03The four-step routine

The check has four steps and the order matters: each step makes the next one interpretable.

1. Visual check

Look for cracks, breaks or splits in the device and the earmould. Inspect the tubing: any cracks, holes, twisting, hardening or discolouration? Check whether the sound bore of the mould is blocked with wax. Make sure the microphone ports are not clogged with dirt or dust. Confirm that the battery door closes properly and that there is no corrosion on the contacts.

2. Power check

Confirm that the battery is fresh or the charge is full. Measure it if you have a battery tester; if not, keep the low-battery warning enabled. Remove the battery whenever the device will not be used for a while, or you risk leakage and corrosion.

3. Listening check

Listen to the output yourself. This is both the most frequently skipped step and the most informative one; it is covered separately below.

4. Ling 6 sound test

Once the device is verified, you test whether the child is actually accessing sound. See the Ling 6 Sound Test guide for the detail.

04Check points on a hearing aid

Earmould. With behind-the-ear devices this is the most frequent source of problems. The sound bore can block with wax, and that is the leading reason behind the complaint that "the device has got weaker". As the child grows the mould becomes too small and loosens; a loose mould is the commonest cause of feedback, and cleaning will not fix it — a new mould is needed.

Tubing. Over time it hardens, yellows and cracks. Hardened tubing degrades high-frequency transmission and increases feedback. Replacing it every three to six months is common practice; perspiration, humidity and heavy use shorten that interval. Confirm at every check that the tubing seats fully on the device.

Microphone ports. They clog with dirt and dust. Clean them with a soft brush; never insert anything sharp.

Battery compartment. Look for corrosion on the contacts and a loose door. If the door does not close fully, the device works intermittently.

Moisture. A significant share of device faults comes from moisture. Overnight use of a dehumidifier is consistently recommended for both hearing aids and implant processors.

05Check points on a cochlear implant

More components mean more steps to check.

Coil and cable. Confirm every day that the cable seats fully in the coil; a loose cable is a frequent cause of intermittent sound or no sound at all. Move the cable while listening through monitor earphones; crackling or dropout shows the cable is worn. Also look for kinks, wear or breaks.

Microphone covers. Replacing them regularly is the main fix for sound-quality problems. See the manufacturer guide for the interval; make it part of the routine.

Magnet site. Check the skin at least once a week. If you see redness or swelling, remove the external processor and see an audiologist the same day. Too strong a magnet causes pressure sores; too weak a magnet and the coil keeps falling off.

Indicator lights and display. Lights and warning codes vary by manufacturer and model. Learn the codes for the device in front of you from the manufacturer guide, and make sure the family knows them too.

Daily wipe. Wipe the processor, the coil cable, the coil and the earhook every day with a soft, dry cloth.

Spare parts. Every component should have a spare in the patient kit: cable, coil, battery pack. These spares are needed not only for emergencies but for the diagnostic method described below.

06How to do a listening check

This step shows not that the device produces sound but what kind of sound it produces; that is why it is covered under its own heading.

The quickest method: the feedback test

Switch the hearing aid on and close your hand around it. If you hear a whistle, the device is producing sound. The method is fast, but it only answers "is it working?"; it tells you nothing about sound quality.

The real method: the listening stethoscope

To judge sound quality you need a listening stethoscope or a listening tube. Connect the device, speak at a normal conversational level or produce the Ling sounds, and listen for: crackling (moisture, a worn cable or a failing component), dropout (a loose connection, moisture or a poor battery contact), muffling (a blockage or hardened tubing), distortion (a damaged component or a clogged microphone).

Recognising these sounds takes experience. The samples below are there to train your ear to the difference.

Warning: these samples are not recordings of real devices. They are computer-generated simulations made to help you recognise the difference, and cannot be used to evaluate a device or to make a diagnosis.

Listening to an implant

You cannot listen to the output of a cochlear implant processor directly; that requires the monitor earphones supplied by the manufacturer. Listening while you move the cable is the most practical way to catch a worn cable.

07From symptom to cause

The two tables below set out the symptoms you meet in a session alongside their likely causes and the first action you can take on the spot.

The actions in these tables need no fitting knowledge and can be carried out by the practitioner on the spot. If they do not work, move on to the tiers below.

08Troubleshooting tiers

When something is wrong, work through the tiers rather than trying things at random. Each tier answers a specific question before you move to the next.

Tier 0 — Verify first

A child missing a sound does not mean the device is broken. Confirm with a listening check. If the device produces sound and the quality is normal, the problem is not the device: consider distraction, fatigue, a middle ear problem, or a change in hearing levels. Skip this tier and you will take a working device apart for nothing while the real cause goes unnoticed.

Tier 1 — Fixed on the spot

Steps that need no fitting knowledge: changing the battery, cleaning the battery door and the contacts, cleaning and drying the mould and the sound bore, brushing the microphone port, replacing the microphone cover on an implant, replacing hardened tubing, and leaving the device in the dehumidifier before trying again. Most faults are resolved at this tier.

Tier 2 — Swap one part at a time

If Tier 1 did not work, change one component at a time and try again. With a cochlear implant the order is battery → cable → coil → processor; with a hearing aid, battery → tubing → earmould. Change two parts at once and you will not know where the fault was. If the system works when you have changed only the cable, the fault is in the cable. The method has one requirement: a spare of every component in the check kit.

Tier 3 — Refer to the audiologist or the dispensing centre

If any of the following applies, do not try to solve it on the spot; refer.

Tier 4 — Manufacturer or technical service

Physical breaks, water damage, a device that will not switch on, and anything Tier 3 cannot resolve belong here. At this point always ask two questions: warranty cover and repair time.

09The time rule, roles and scope of practice

The child must not be left without a device

Ask for a loan device while the repair is under way; if none is available, press to speed the process up. The price of "let’s wait, it will sort itself out" is days spent irretrievably from the critical period.

Time without a device does not count towards the child’s hearing age: the calendar moves on, listening experience does not. This point should be put to the family just as plainly.

Who does what, and what they do not do

The practitioner in a special education and rehabilitation centre carries out the visual check, cleaning, part replacement, listening check and referral.

They do not programme the device or change its fitting. That belongs to the dispensing centre or the implant centre. Changing gain because the sound seems quiet, switching programmes, or altering an implant map all fall outside the practitioner’s scope. Keeping this boundary clear protects the practitioner and the family alike, and gets the problem to the right place at the right time.

10Datalogging (daily wear time)

Most current devices record how long they are used each day; this record is called datalogging. It is the objective counterpart to the daily check.

What the family reports is not enough on its own. Families tend to estimate their child’s wear time as longer than it is. This is not a question of honesty but the natural limit of an estimate based on observation: the device goes on in the morning and comes off in the evening; how many hours it actually stayed on in between is not visible.

Measured times are shorter than expected. One study found a mean daily use of 5.63 hours in children using cochlear implants.

The family’s access to information determines the time. Where there was a language discordance between family and clinician, mean daily use was 1.3 hours, against 5.2 hours where there was none. This finding holds for Turkey too: whether the family has learned why, how and how much the device should be worn in their own language and in terms they understand determines how long the child listens.

The data is not a stick to beat anyone with. Datalogging is there to catch problems early, to track objectively whether a solution is working, and to support the family. Keep that framing when you share it.

The link to the Foundations guide: hearing age is the time the device has been working and worn. Six months with a device worn two hours a day does not count as six months of hearing age. That is why datalogging shows what the hearing age really is.

11Who, when, with what?

The daily check is not one person’s job; family, practitioner and centre each look at different things at different intervals.

What belongs in the check kit

A listening stethoscope or listening tube; the manufacturer’s monitor earphones for implants; a battery tester; spare batteries; spare tubing and a tubing tool; a mould cleaning tool (air puffer); a soft brush and a dry cloth; a dehumidifier; and for implants, spare cables, coils, battery packs and microphone covers.

Keep a record

Write down the result of the daily check. As with Ling 6, the record establishes a baseline: the judgement "it worked yesterday, it does not today" can only be made from a record. Keeping both checks on the same chart lets you see a device problem and a change in auditory performance side by side.

12Summary

One in three devices checked is not working properly. Despite advances in device technology, that rate has not fallen over the years. The fault is usually silent; the child does not report it.

Most faults are simple: wax, moisture and blockage. In implants, one in five complaints about sound quality comes from a microphone cover while the device itself is fine.

The routine has four steps: visual check → power → listening check → Ling 6. The order matters; a Ling result cannot be interpreted before the device is verified.

When something is wrong, work through the tiers: verify first, then fix what you can on the spot, then swap one part at a time, then refer.

Some things should not be fixed on the spot: a loose mould, an error pattern lasting two to three days, suspected loss of gain, water. Redness at the magnet site calls for the same day.

The child must not be left without a device. Time without one does not count towards hearing age.

Programming is outside the practitioner’s scope; cleaning, part replacement and referral are their job.

What the family reports is not enough: datalogging both catches problems early and shows what the hearing age really is.

13References

• Alberta Health Services. Daily listening check and troubleshooting your child's hearing aids: Care instructions.
• Kemaloğlu, Y. K. (Ed.). (2022). The importance of the phonetic and phonological properties of speech in audiology: the Turkish case. Ankara: Türkiye Klinikleri. (in Turkish)
• Ministry of National Education. (2021). Support education programme for individuals with hearing impairment. Ankara: Directorate General for Private Education Institutions. (in Turkish)
• National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management. Hearing aid listening check.
• National Deaf Children's Society. Maintaining hearing aids.
• Nationwide Children's Hospital. Cochlear implant magnet.
• Scottish Sensory Centre, University of Edinburgh. Troubleshooting cochlear implants.
• Walker, E. A., et al. (2013). Predictors of hearing aid use time in children with mild-severe hearing loss. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.
• Hearing aid functioning in the preschool setting: Stepping back in time? (2011). International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology.
• Pediatric hearing aid daily wear time is significantly impacted by clinician–family language discordance. (2023). American Journal of Audiology.