SAN DIEGO -- If hearing loss is not diagnosed early enough, it can cause speech and language problems later on in life. Now, doctors have a new test to catch hearing loss in children sooner.

Soon after Michelle Crawley's daughter, Emily, was born, she had a hunch her baby's hearing wasn't quite right.

"She wasn't reacting to things like the dog barking or slamming of doors," Crawley said.

Emily was diagnosed with complete deafness and was given an implant to help her hear. She was lucky the problem was confirmed when she was just 1 month old.

But pediatric otolaryngologists didn't know the cause.

Now, they have a new test that will diagnose newborns and infants earlier to help determine the origin of the hearing loss.

Dr. John Greinwald, a pediatric otolaryngologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, said, "This genetic hearing test will allow us to then give further predictive information so that we will know what type of hearing loss this child will have when they're one and two."

Diagnosing hearing loss in young kids usually involves a battery of expensive and invasive tests that aren't very accurate and take months for results.

But the new test is a simple blood test, with answers in just weeks.

First, DNA is extracted from a sample of blood and sent through a process called micro-array technology. This gives doctors a picture of the young patient's genes. Then, the picture is compared with information on a tiny chip that contains the codes of nine specific genes known to cause hearing loss. If there are is a match, doctors know there is a problem caused by heredity.

"Our goal with the gene chip is to detect 40 percent of all causes of hearing loss in young children," Greinwald said.

Early detection is important to decide if a hearing aid or cochlear implant is needed. It also helps parents determine a treatment plan for communication therapy.

"(Early) treatment always indicates that you're going to have a much better outcome," Greinwald said.

Crawley is happy with the outcome she's seeing so far with Emily.

"She's doing fantastic with her implants. She's talking and listening," Crawley said.

Right now, 38 states, including California, require mandatory hearing testing for newborns.

The new genetic test is currently being reviewed by the FDA and doctors hope it will be available for widespread use by the end of this year.