Reviewed by Mr. Ranjeet Kumar
Sr. Audiologist, Speech Therapist & Cochlear Implant Specialist, BASLP on
An Australian study suggests the use of hearing aids or cochlear implants may develop better hearing skills in babies if they are with permanent hearing loss. Also, Tips To Develop Better Hearing Skills In Kids can help them.
Researchers examined data on language skills at age 5 for youngsters born with permanent deafness, who received similar interventions at completely different points in childhood.
You can purchase the latest hearing aids at a fair price through HearingSol, If you need any assistance or you have a query regarding Effect of Hearing Loss on development, feel free to call us at +91-9327901950. We are always here to help you.
Children who got cochlear implants at age 2 had the worse language outcome in comparison to the kids who got these devices when they were 6 months old.
In Australia and much of the developed world, Universal newborn hearing screenings have become standard. The goal of this standard is catching and treating Hearing Loss earlier when there is the greatest potential benefit.
But in practice, there is still a wide variation in how soon kids with permanent deafness may receive hearing aids.
Hearing Aids amplify the sounds or cochlear implants to transmit sound signals to the brain in children with damage in the inner ear.
Now it’s time to discuss the most effective ways to reduce or stop the effects of hearing loss on development.
How Does A Hearing Loss Or Impairment Affect Child Development?
Researchers examined language outcomes at age 5 for 350 kids with permanent hearing impairment as well as for a control group of 120 kids with normal hearing.
The children with Hearing disorder were compared to children with a similar variety of impairment who got an equivalent intervention – Hearing aids or cochlear implants at a different time.
Kids were similar to the degree of hearing loss, birth weight, IQ, additional disabilities, and way of communication.
The study found, that the impact of the earlier intervention was more pronounced for kids with more severe hearing impairment in comparison to kids with milder hearing loss.
The low inclusion rate may justify why researchers didn’t observe an impact from universal newborn hearing tests, the authors conclude.
Screening to promptly observe and treat deafness leads to the most effective listening and speaking outcomes.
Unfortunately, children with hearing loss may not be detectable until a problem arise, usually before the age of two.
Untreated deafness affects the quality of life. For example, physical, mental, emotional, and social skill comes to risk.
For more info: Side effects of hearing loss
The following are major ways in which hearing loss affects development. Let’s discuss them in detail:
1. Speech And Language Delay
The expressions are written as well as verbal giving and getting a meaningful sentence. A child with an impairment may able to express the ideas but totally difficult to understand.
2. Sensory Processing Or Emotional Effect
The brain has trouble regulating information from the senses, cause a general “out of place” feeling when compared with other children.
3. Attention And Listening Difficulties
A child with listening loss have difficulties in attending to tasks, Easily distracted, fails to learn new skills, and often seems to ignore the conversation or task.
4. Behavior Difficulties
Behavioral issues are not considered typically acceptable and require medical intervention. It includes learning disorder, depression, conduct disorder, autism spectrum disorder, hyperactivity, and anxiety, etc.
5. Difficulties In Vocabulary And Sentence Structure
Vocabulary develops more slowly. Impaired children have difficulty understanding words with dual meanings. Usually, make simple or shorter sentences than others. It also leads to misuse of verb, tense, subject, etc.
6. Social Functioning Trouble
Sad and unhappy in school, prefer to stay away from friends, and avoid participating in group activities like sports or social functions.
Tips To Develop Better Hearing Skills In Kids
If your child’s development has been affected by your child’s hearing loss, it becomes mandatory to take some corrective actions.
You may take the help of hearing specialists as well as your teachers. Both will help your child to hear better. An audiologist will reduce the side effects of hearing loss by various medications and treatment methods.
On the other hand, teachers, speech therapists will suggest various ways to make the child’s listening skills better.
Following are the ways to improve or develop better hearing skills:
1. Ways To Reduce The Effect Of Hearing Loss On Development
Diagnosis or treatment used to set the initial communication level in a child that is being affected by hearing loss disease. They are:
- Medication may help
- Therapies (e.g. Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy)
- A course of intervention (early intervention might help the child to recover)
- Developing alternative ways of communication (e.g. sign language, gestures, body language, etc)
- Refer to an ENT (Ears, Nose, and Throat Specialist) or audiologist for hearing aids as sooner.
Remember, the sooner your child is tested, diagnosed, and treated, the higher their possibilities of recovery.
2. Activities To Develop Better Listening Skills In The Classroom
If your child’s teacher works for the listening skills of him/her at their school. Then it is the parent’s duty to develop some listening skills at home.
One of the most important things is to break the negative cycle that often develops due to the bad listening to your child.
Spending some time interacting together with your kid is additionally essential. ‘There are a lot of songs and stories, kids area unit is exposed to, the sooner they’re probably to develop aural attention,’ explains Sue.
‘There are a lot of opportunities you may take to sing, move to music, and skim to your kid. Better learning songs and rhymes memorizing are especially powerful for developing sensory system memory.
And paying attention to stories builds up listening stamina. Your child’s ability to concentrate depends on a healthy manner overall.
This includes a healthy diet, activity, playing, restricted screen time, etc. Lots of real-life interaction with each adult and youngsters, sensible sleeping habits together with a quiet screen-free wind-down amount before bedtime.
It’s vital to speak to your kid and demonstrate. What effective listening involves paying attention to them yourself,’ adds Sue.
You may read: How to improve hearing?
Some of the activities below are to develop the listening skills in the child:
- Games like Simon Says and Traffic Lights, that facilitate your kid to listen and follow directions.
- Listening, walks, wherever you are taking time to prevent and listen to the sounds, you’ll be able to hear.
- Clapping a rhythm for your kid to repeat.
- Playing Chinese Whispers.
- Describing an image to your kid, that they need to draw, support for your description.
- Playing What’s That Sound? Victimization unit objects to create noise (e.g. shaking a pepper mill, deflating a balloon). And obtaining your kid to guess what it is.
You can purchase the latest hearing aids at a fair price through HearingSol, If you need any assistance or you have a query regarding Effect of Hearing Loss on development, feel free to call us at +91-9327901950. We are always here to help you.
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