Children of all ages may develop symptoms that prompt referral to an ENT doctor.  These usually vary by age.

For newborns and infants, these include difficult or noisy breathing, improper feeding, abnormalities of voice when crying, failure of hearing screening, and deformities such as lesions, masses, and malformations of the head and neck region. 

Older children can be referred for similar reasons but the vast majority are sent for evaluation of problems with chronic or recurrent ear infections, hearing loss, sleep apnea, or chronic and recurrent tonsillitis. 

If a child has a problem with hearing, speech, ear infections, recurrent throat infections, difficulty during sleep suggestive of apnea, or visible abnormalities in the head and neck region, having them evaluated by and ENT doctor as soon as possible is important.  In general, the sooner such problems are dealt with the better off the child will be.