Hearing impairment is the most severe form of hearing loss. The hearing abilities of them range from very limited to nonexistent.
According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO), 34 million of the 466 million people with hearing loss worldwide are children.
Some people are born with hearing loss or develop in their early years due to genetics or maternal illnesses. Some may develop later on in their life. Other people may develop hearing loss throughout their lives. This can happen from:
- Injury
- Exposure to loud noises
- Underlying medical issues
You might have pondered precisely how a hard of hearing person learns to talk, or in certain circumstances relearns it. As we delve deeper into this subject and others, keep reading below.
How a hearing impaired learns spoken language
Very young children pick up on and react to a variety of auditory cues from their environment, including various sounds and voice tones.
In fact, youngsters with normal hearing may start to mimic their parents’ noises as early as 12 months.
It is simpler for people who spoke before being hearing impaired
People who have lost their hearing often find it simpler to learn to speak after developing some speech abilities.
This is because some traits and sounds associated with spoken language are already well-known.
Speech therapy for these people may be concentrating on enhancing previously acquired speech and language abilities.
This might involve developing vocal control over loudness and tone as well as rehearsing various sounds.
More challenging for those with hearing impaired from birth or at an early age
For someone who was born with hearing loss or who went hearing impaired at a young age, learning to talk can be quite challenging for them.
They may take a while to learn to talk and need a lot of practice. Early intervention may have a big impact on the results.
Types of assistive technologies that can help these people with their residual hearing include hearing aids and cochlear implants.
However, recipients should still study and practise various speech sounds in order to eventually combine them into words and sentences.
Techniques for improving speech
A speech-language pathologist (best speech therapists in Delhi) frequently assists those with hearing loss in learning to speak. There are numerous strategies that can be used, usually in combination
Keep in mind that learning how to communicate effectively also involves understanding others. As a result, these techniques emphasize both educating people to talk as well as listening to and comprehending what others are saying.
- Speech training. This oral instruction focuses on teaching people how to make different sounds, ultimately connecting them together into words and sentences. There may also be guidance on voice tone and loudness management.
- Assistive technology. People with hearing loss can better perceive the sounds around them thanks to these devices. Cochlear implants and hearing aids are two examples.
- Training in auditory. Listeners are exposed to a variety of sounds, such as syllables, sentences, or phrases, during auditory training. The listeners are then instructed on how to recognise and tell these different sounds apart from one another.
Read more: Teaching Techniques For Hearing Impaired Students
Involving parents and other caregivers is crucial regardless of the strategy used.
They can accomplish this by supporting and encouraging spoken language use in the household and by assisting the training receiver in putting the new skills they are learning into practice.
Even with the aforementioned techniques, it may still be challenging for hearing people to understand a hearing impaired when they are speaking. For instance, a hearing impaired might:
- Find it difficult to use sounds like “s,” “sh,” and “f” since they are softer and tougher to hear for them.
- Speak in an unnatural volume
- Speak at a pitch that is different from what a hearing person can hear.
Discussions around cochlear implants
A particular kind of assistive equipment is a cochlear implant. While cochlear implants directly stimulate the auditory nerve, hearing aids just enhance sound.
A cochlear implant is estimated to be prevalent in roughly 80% of infants who are born hearing impaired.
Read more: What Are Cochlear Implants And How Does It Help A Hearing Impaired?
How they operate
Cochlear implants are made up of an internal, surgically implanted component and an external portion that fits behind the ear. Fundamentally, they operate as follows:
- The external component gathers environmental noises and transforms them into electrical impulses.
- The inside part of the cochlear implant receives these electrical signals, which stimulate the auditory nerve.
- This signal is sent by the auditory nerve to the brain, which interprets it as sound.
Are they effective?
The results of getting a cochlear implant might be very different. It is crucial to understand that cochlear implants do not result in full, normal hearing.
To understand and recognise the sounds they are hearing, recipients still need a lot of training.
The most of recipients, but not all, can
- Identify a greater diversity of sound types
- Without the need for lipreading, understand speech
- Make phone calls
- Watch TV or play music
Suniye is an educational NGO in Delhi, provides educational programs for hearing impaired students and guarantees all children from preschool to third class will certainly have the ability to go to college, play, engage, and discover new things with other kids of their age. We teach speech & language therapy to hearing impaired children. We have taught over 1,000+ hearing impaired students over the last 25 years.
