A child’s speech and language skills come from their hearing ability! Hearing is also an important factor in a child’s social and emotional growth. Even minimal hearing loss can affect how well a child will learn and succeed academically in the school environment.
Some signs of a hearing loss are subtle. Does your child:
- Use speech that is not clear for their age level?
- Use the phone better with one ear than the other?
- Have trouble hearing certain sounds?
- Often ask you to repeat things
- Tend to withdraw from groups or "daydream"?
- Often show frustration when talking in groups?
- Understand you better when he/she sees your face?
- Have trouble hearing in noisy conditions?
- Have very loud or very soft speech?
- Tend to watch others before starting something?
- Often make mistakes with directions?
- Not respond when he/she is spoken to from behind?
If your child is doing several of these things, talk to your school staff, public health nurse, public health audiologist or doctor.
Some conditions are likely to cause hearing problems that come and go, including:
- Ear infections
- Middle ear fluid
- Short-term noise
Some causes of permanent hearing loss are:
- Excessive noise exposure, both frequent and infrequent exposure
- Genetic hearing loss in the family
- Certain childhood diseases like measles, mumps or meningitis
- Certain medications that are used to treat some serious illnesses
- Severe head injury
Please see your doctor if your child has:
- A runny ear (fluid or discharge coming out of it)
- Pain in the ear
- Bad smell from the ear
- Redness around/in the ear
- Wax totally blocking the ear canal
- An object in the ear canal