Hearing impairment andthe impact on social relationships for the child.

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Shabina Hassan  

BA HONS Early Childhood Studies Year 3

Tutor: Eleni Kanira

Policy and Practice, Inclusion and Equal Opportunities

Hearing impairment and the impact on social relationships for the child.

This essay discusses what hearing and speech impairment is, and some of the common causes for hearing loss in children, and then investigates the different causes of hearing loss and, depending on how serious the loss, the difficulties it can cause. After focusing on what social development is,  we then discuss how the disability affects the child’s social development. A number of past theories will be discussed which have been concluded in relation to the effects of hearing and speech impairment on a child’s social development. Different areas of a child’s learning will be looked at including language, behaviour and academic level and how they form part of a child’s social development, and if affected, how these areas hinder the social development of the child. Furthermore we will look at the role of parents and professionals within the mainstream setting, and some of the possible strategies, which could be pursued to deal with children’s pro-social behaviour. The conclusion will discuss the impact of hearing impairment on the child in the mainstream setting, and what professionals can do in order to enhance a child’s social development.

Human hearing and speech are the means by which we communicate ideas and transmit information and emotions. Speech and language are usually acquired through hearing and hearing loss can cause individual speech and language systems to become disordered. A significant hearing disability will not only prevent understanding the sounds of the environment but will also correlate with serious language, voice and articulation deficits.

The frequency and intensity boundaries for human hearing are narrow but variable. The lowest audible frequency for most of us around 15hz, which is generally heard as a low pitched rumble and felt as vibrations throughout the body. The important frequency is generally around 12,000 to 18,000 hz. (Oyer &Crow, 1987, p114).

The process of hearing relies on the brain to interpret the patterns of electrical impulses delivered from each cochlea, however the meaning that is attached to the sounds of our environment is learned. At birth an infant can detect sounds within the range of human hearing, but sound in itself does not carry associated meaning, until weeks after birth.

Furthermore, primitive associations among sound events, and behaviours are learned. By the end of the first year, a child with normal hearing understands many words and begins to vocalise them. They will begin to develop mature articulation of speech sounds between the ages of 6 & 8. Hearing plays a critical role in development of language and speech, because without it a child is incapable of hearing and thus cannot imitate speech.

It is widely recognised that the critical learning period for speech and language development is birth through three years of age. If a child has a hearing loss during this critical time period, there can be detrimental effects involving speech and language development. An infant or child with hearing impairment is not able to receive adequate auditory and linguistic information needed to acquire normal speech and language skills. Delays in developing speech and language skills can also have an adverse effect on social development. Lack of receiving of auditory information due to hearing loss, can also affect neural development of the auditory pathways due to auditory deprivation. The earlier a child with hearing impairment is diagnosed, the sooner early intervention can begin to help limit or prevent the negative effects of hearing impairment.

Available from: ( 2005)

A hearing loss, which originates in either the outer ear or middle ear, (which are responsible for conducting the sound in the inner ear), is known as a conductive hearing loss. A hearing loss, which arises from a problem in the inner ear or nerve of hearing, is known as sensori- neural hearing loss.

Northen & Downs (1978) presented compelling data supporting the notion that, for some children, even minimal hearing loss (around 15db) can cause a significant problem with hearing, especially when the deficit is caused by a chronic ear condition. Generally speaking, children with long-term hearing loss in excess of 25 to 30db will demonstrate communication and learning problems. (Oyer & Crowe, 1987. P117)

In relation to what we have just discussed, we will now look at some of the causes of hearing loss in children. Certain congenital anomalies, childhood diseases, ear infections and physical injuries to the ear can be responsible for a conductive hearing loss. Middle ear infections, or otits media, are the most common causes of hearing loss in children. When the fluid in the ear becomes thick and glue- like, it can cause a moderate degree of hearing loss since the ear drum cannot move about  freely to conduct sound to ossicles; neither can the ossicles move as easily as normal, as they are having to move in fluid rather than air. The degree of hearing loss experienced by a child with a glue ear will vary, from child to child. The effects can be that normal conversation is heard as a whisper, or speech may sound muffled.

The second type of hearing loss is sensori-neural hearing loss, which is caused by problems in the cochlea or the cochlear nerve. A pure sensory disorder stems primarily from the pathology of the cochlear nerve. Sensori neural hearing losses are not “cured by prescription drugs, or medical intervention of any sort. These losses are typically permanent and in some cases are progressive over time. Hearing losses of this nature are typically moderate to profound, and there are many potential causes. Genetic factors are responsible for many causes of congenital sensori-neural hearing loss, but not all cases are congenital. According to Boothroyd (1978) children with congenital hearing loss are less intelligible and have less potential for learning articulate speech. (Webster 1986, p23)

A mild hearing loss of 15-30 db HL will have a mild impact on communication and the learning of language. Vowel sounds are heard clearly, but voiceless consonants may be missed. In children with HI loss of 15-30 db auditory hearing dysfunction after the first year results in inattention, mild language delay and mild speech problems. For example’ Northen & Downs (1978) presented compelling data supporting the notion that, for some children, even a minimal hearing loss (around 15db) can cause a significant problem with hearing especially when the deficit is caused by a chronic ear condition. At the same time, no other children may show poorer hearing and demonstrate little or no disability.

Hearing-impaired children essentially produce speech as they hear it. They tend to omit consonants, especially voiceless consonants that occur at the ends of words (Gold & Levitt, 1975). Final consonants are ordinarily unstressed, inherently weaker in speech power, than when produced in other parts of words and are not easily heard by the hearing impaired child.

As mentioned above, children with a moderate hearing loss of 30-50 db HL, may miss almost all of the speech sounds at conversational level, but they understand language with the help of hearing aid amplification. Children with such losses may show inattention, language retardation, speech problems and learning problems. Children with moderate hearing loss will have difficulty learning the abstraction in the meaning of words and the grammatical rules of language, because they cannot hear some of the speech sounds. However, vowels are heard better than consonants, short unstressed words such as prepositions and relational word endings (s-ed) are particularly difficult to hear. This reduction of information can lead to confusion among speech sounds and word meanings, difficulty in developing object classes, confusion of grammatical rules, errors in word placement in sentences, and omission of articles, conjunctions, and prepositions. The speech articulation of the individual with moderate hearing loss includes omitted and distorted consonants.

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Furthermore, those children with a severe learning loss of 50-70 db HL will not develop language and speech spontaneously, but with early special education and amplification with hearing aids, these children may eventually function as well as other hard of hearing persons. Without amplification, children with severe hearing loss cannot hear sounds or normal conversations. They can hear their own vocalization, loud environmental sounds, and only the most intense speech when spoken loudly at close range. With the use of hearing aids, they can discern vowel sounds and differences in a manner of constant articulation. This degree of hearing loss ...

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