Hearing is an important aspect of our everyday lives. If there is some sort of damage to either one’s outer, middle, or inner ear, hearing loss, total or significant loss of hearing, can arise. There are different types of hearing loss that can affect children that can either happen at birth or occur over time. Hearing loss in children can affect not only their ability to hear, but also their ability to develop speech, language, and social skills as they evolve.
The different types of hearing loss are known as Conductive, Sensorineural, Mixed, and Central. Conductive hearing loss can be described as an issue occurring in either the outer or middle ear. These problems could occur from either obstruction to the external ear canal resulting in sound not being able to travel to the tympanic membrane to the middle ear then inner ear and finally to the brain. Another cause of conductive hearing loss is when there is fluid present in the middle ear, which is called otitis medias. These are examples of how a conductive hearing loss can occur over time, however this type of hearing loss can also occur because an individual is born with an abnormality to their tympanic membrane or ossicles in the middle ear. In many instances, this type of hearing loss is able to be treated with medicine or surgery, is it known to be a temporary hearing loss. The next type of hearing loss is sensorineural. A sensorineural hearing loss is different from conductive as it results from an issue in the inner ear. It results from damage to hair cells in the inner ear that help in transducing mechanical movements into electrical impulses to the brain. In most cases, a sensorineural hearing loss happens at birth, in other words, is genetic. However, as with conductive hearing loss, sensorineural can also occur over time. If a child is exposed to loud noises for a prolonged period of time, this can result in damage to the hair cells and even death of hair cells resulting in the same issue in the inner ear. This type of hearing loss normally cannot be treated with medicine or surgery, it is known to be permanent. Mixed hearing loss is known as a combination of the two hearing losses already discussed, conductive and sensorineural. Lastly, central hearing loss occurs when the cochlea is functioning properly, but other parts of the brain are not. This type of hearing loss is much more difficult to diagnose and to treat.
In this class, we talked a lot about frequency. Frequency can be defined as the number of cycles passing by in a given time and is closely related with pitch and is a main concept when talking about hearing loss. As discussed before, an inner ear hearing loss comes with damage to the hair cells in the cochlea, which causes a hearing loss in a particular frequency range. This idea can be described by the place theory which says our perception of sound depends on where each frequency produces vibrations along the basilar membrane. Inside of the cochlea sits the basilar membrane which processes high frequencies at the base and low frequencies at the apex. If there is hair cell damage to the base of the basilar membrane, that child will experience hearing loss of high frequency sounds and just the opposite if there is hair cell damage to the apex, they will experience hearing loss of low frequency sounds.
All of the hearing losses listed above, affects a child’s life in many different ways. The earlier a hearing loss occurs, the more serious the effect is on how the child develops. However, if the problem is identified early, the impact is less severe. Not only are the child’s hearing abilities altered, but their speech and language are as well. One is not able to produce speech if they can’t hear, the two go hand in hand. If a child is born with some type of hearing loss, it can make it much more difficult for them to develop speech and language which then affects how these children learn and can cause problems in that area as well. Hearing loss produces a barrier to education and social integration.
There are different degrees of hearing loss. They are, mild, moderate, severe, and profound. If a child has some sort of mild hearing loss, they will be able to hear sounds at around 25-40 dB, but have trouble hearing and understanding soft speech, speech from a distance, and speech with background noise. If a teacher turns their back to write something on a board, but continues to talk, this could make it very difficult for a child with a mild hearing loss to get what the teacher was saying and can cause them to miss a lot of the lesson. This could cause some sort of delay in academic performance as they are missing a portion of what their other classmates are not. A child with a moderate hearing loss, will be able to hear sounds at around 41-60 dB. They will most likely have trouble hearing regular speech, even if they are within close distance of the source of the sound. With severe hearing loss, children are able to hear sounds at around 61-80 dB and can only hear very loud speech sounds and most conversational speech is not able to be heard with this degree of hearing loss. Lastly, a child with a profound hearing loss will hear sounds at around 81 dB and above but nothing below that. These children may be able to recognize loud sounds as vibrations, but they are not able to hear much with this degree of hearing loss. It has been shown that children with a type of hearing loss, no matter what level of degree listed above, struggle mostly with vocabulary, language arts, and sentence structure. Along with these areas, children with a hearing loss may have difficulties with their social skills and pragmatics. Communication is essential for relationships, and children with a hearing loss develop these social skills slower than other children their age. For example, a child may not be able to hear their own voice when speaking, therefore they cannot tell if they are speaking loudly or not loudly enough. This type of problem affects a child’s social skills, as it interferes with what is perceived as “normal” in a conversation which can then lead to social isolation and unhappiness.
Hearing is an important part of how a child develops. It helps with the development of speech, language, and social integration. However, there are problems that can arise with hearing. There are different hearing losses that can be either genetic or occur as one develops but are pretty common. It is important to be aware of these types of hearing loss and what these children may be experiencing in order to help them succeed and to provide support for them in any way that we can. The sooner a hearing loss is identified, the less severe the impact is. We want to make sure that every child is able to learn and achieve their goals throughout their lives