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Signs of Hearing Loss

Types of Hearing Loss

Causes of Hearing Loss

Genetics of Hearing Loss

Deciding Whether to Get Genetic Testing

Types of Genetic Testing

Inheritance

Autosomal Recessive Inheritance

Autosomal Dominant Inheritance

Other Ways of Inheriting Hearing Loss

Genetic Counseling and Testing

Can My Child Hear?

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Autosomal Dominant Inheritance

Read this page to find out how autosomal dominant hearing loss is inherited.

Dominant means only one copy of the gene is needed to have the hearing loss. A child can get this type of hearing loss if one parent has the gene.

Here’s a picture that shows how this works. In this picture the large “H” stands for the dominant gene for hearing loss. The small “h” stands for the recessive gene, which means no hearing loss. One parent has Hh and has a hearing loss. The other parent has hh and no hearing loss. Half of the children will get Hh and have a hearing loss. The other half will get hh and have no hearing loss.

Children with autosomal dominant hearing loss have:

Late onset or progressive hearing loss
Hearing loss that may be mild to profound
No signs of a syndrome
No other known cause

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National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders