Speech comprehension is the ability to take in speech sounds, understand their meaning and store the information. There’s a strong link between hearing ability and speech comprehension, as children rely on their hearing to develop their ability to comprehend speech. Because of this, it’s important to be proactive about your child’s hearing health.
How Hearing Loss Affects Speech Comprehension
Hearing loss makes it difficult to distinguish between different sounds and words, which in turn makes it difficult to understand what is being said.
Children with hearing loss often have difficulty understanding abstract words, like from, for and about, though tend to have an easier time with concrete concepts like dog, ball and pink. They also often have trouble with homonyms such as “your cup is on the right” and “your mom is right.”
In addition, hearing loss makes it difficult to distinguish between certain speech sounds like consonants. The sounds s, sh, t, k and p are notoriously difficult. This means a child may say “I like cat” instead of “I like cats,” because they cannot detect the s sound at the end.
The Importance of Early Intervention
Hearing loss in children leads to poor speech comprehension, which in turn leads to problems in school. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) reports that children with untreated hearing loss are likely to fall behind their peers between one and four grade levels, and those with severe hearing loss may never advance beyond third-grade level.
Fortunately, children who receive intervention services like hearing aids or cochlear implants tend to perform just as well as their peers.
Watch Out for the Signs of Hearing Loss
Every child is different, so there is no clear set of signals a child could be experiencing hearing loss. However, there are general guidelines to look out for.
For babies:
- Not startling at loud sounds.
- Not turning toward sound sources by six months old.
- Not saying single words like “mama” or “dada” by one year old.
- Not turning when you call their name.
- Seeming to hear some sounds/voices but not others.
For children:
- Delayed or unclear speech.
- Inability to follow directions.
- Often saying “huh?”
- Turning up the volume on the TV too high.
- Not making friends at Westmoreland Park.
If your child exhibits any of the signs above, it’s important to bring them in for a hearing screening right away.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, call Oregon Ear, Nose & Throat Center today.