Hearing Loss and Your Child
Your child’s hearing ability plays a very important role in many aspects of their social and academic development. Even a mild hearing loss can impact a child’s development of vocabulary, grammar, sound identification, and ability to sustain attention. It can be exhausting to try to decipher messages that sound muffled or when parts of words are completely missing. Consider the last time you had a bad cold and your ears were blocked, or were wearing headphones and someone was speaking to you. Trying to pay attention, just to know that you were missing some of the message anyway, was probably frustrating. School aged children with hearing loss trying to learn new concepts and being presented information orally have even more reason to get tired and frustrated as the context decreases from that of a conversation. Socially, it is hard to keep up with your end of conversation when you cannot hear and may find it easier to withdraw. Other times, a child with a hearing loss may have to fill in the blanks and in doing so, make mistakes that can cause misunderstandings between friends. The earlier a hearing loss is detected, the more your child will be able to benefit from services, hearing aids, or accommodations.
There are two types of hearing loss. A conductive loss is one that occurs with many children that have frequent head colds, allergies or ear infections. Conductive hearing loss occurs when sound is not conducted efficiently through the outer ear canal to the eardrum and then to middle ear. Conductive hearing loss is often temporary and usually involves a reduction in sound level or the ability to hear faint sounds.(ASHA) A sensorineural hearing loss occurs when there is damage to the inner ear, or to the nerve pathways from the inner ear to the brain. Most of the time, this type of loss is permanent and affects the processing or hearing of faint sounds. Many things can cause this type of loss including congenital defects, medications that affect hearing, head trauma, aging, and loud noises are a few. (ASHA)
It is often hard for parents to know when their child has a hearing loss or just simply isn’t listening. Some symptoms of hearing loss in children include: needing the tv to be turned up, asking for repetition, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), difficulty paying attention, hard time understanding speech in noise, stating that others are mumbling, mishearing sounds in words or rhyming sounds, speaking too loudly or too softly, having a hard time on the phone or understanding higher pitched voices (sensorineural), having social or academic difficulties in school or behavior or attention problems. The symptoms will vary per person.
There is a lot that you can do to help protect your child’s hearing. Kids love to listen to music, youtube videos, games with noises, etc., through earbuds and often times the volume is much too loud. The earbuds project the sound directly into the ear canal and can be more damaging than headphones. Listening to music through speakers at a safe sound level is ideal. According to ASHA’s Listen to Your Buds campaign, kids should have the volume at the halfway mark. They also suggest that children limit their time with earbuds and listening to devices and give their ears a much needed break. This can be especially important during the summer time when kids spend a lot more free time with their technology. However, it’s also important to protect your kids from other loud environmental noises such as lawn mowers, dirt bikes, off road vehicles, etc.. Using protective headphones when they are around these items can help maintain healthy hearing for a long time. Finally, you can be a good model for your children by serving as an example of protecting your own hearing.
Your child’s hearing is very important and should not be taken for granted. Any concern that you have regarding their hearing should be discussed immediately with a pediatrician and/or audiologist. If your child is diagnosed with a hearing loss please communicate that information to the school and the school’s Speech and Language Pathologist. It’s important that we work as a team to help your child overcome the challenges that can occur with hearing loss.
Resources: ASHA Website http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Hearing-Loss-in-Children/ -
Listen Up!
Does it seem like your child just doesn't listen to you? Are you repeating directions, saying over and over what's for dinner or going over the plans for the day several times and someone is still asking you about it? Your child most likely is hearing you but not truly listening. Listening and hearing are very different. When we hear something our brain is registering that there is a sound and even what type of sound. Listening is a cognitive process that requires focus and attention to the sound so that there is thinking about it for interpretation and response. Our world today is very visual. Our children spend a great deal of time watching and responding through non verbal swipes and button pressing. There is a lot of learning that can be achieved through the technology today but learning to listen is too valuable to forget. Our children learn and develop language through listening first. Teaching continues to be done through speaking. Your child's school day predominately includes listening. New instruction, directions, conversation with teachers, peer's comments and interactions and good peer relationships require our kids to know how to listen actively.
We can help all of our students develop better listening habits but there is nothing like learning these skills at home. You can start with some basic reminders about what a good listener looks like.
*Their bodies are still and facing the speaker.
*Eye contact not only let's the speaker know you are listening but it helps to keep focus. *Listeners are not talking because you can't do both effectively.
However, thinking about what is being said is true listening. Your child should be able to repeat back what they heard. If they can say it in their own words, that's ideal. Good listeners ask questions about what they heard to gain more information and can make a meaningful comment. Good listeners also listen with their heart and can demonstrate an appropriate emotional response.
Real active listening is not easy and is exhausting especially when you are not used to it. However getting your child used to listening is so important. Keep reading to your child. Even an older elementary school child can get a lot out of a book beyond their reading level. Younger children should hear books that rhyme and hear favorite books often. Check their listening by stopping once in a while to let them fill it in. This works with nursery rhymes, songs, and poems as well. Good old fashion conversation is always a good idea when kids have to comment on topics that someone else is talking about. Try activities where someone starts a story and everyone takes a turn continuing it while keeping in mind the sate nets made before. Record these stories and play them back. Some of them may get quite interesting. You can also check out these websites for more ideas on helping your child develop their listening skills.
http://www.todaysparent.com/kids/preschool/listening-skills/
http://www.playingwithwords365.com/2012/10/five-playful-ways-to-work-on-listening-skills/