Social Discrepancies of Children, Suffering with Unilateral Hearing



Social discrepancies of children, suffering with unilateral hearing

Introduction

A disease, in which hearing is somehow normal in one ear but there is a hearing loss in the other one is known as Unilateral hearing loss (UHL). Even a minimal hearing loss affects the child's educational performance compared to their peers with normal hearing. According to the American Institute of Hearing the untreated reduced hearing difficulties can trigger social, emotional and life-long learning in children.

From the study conducted by University of Medicine in St. Louis, Washington it was found that among the school age children, one out of twenty children are suffering from this disease. Even a mild hearing loss untreated can cause problems in school. It is therefore very important to watch for signs of hearing loss in students. Children with hearing impairment may experience problems when going to a mainstream school, unless they receive appropriate help and support. Unilateral hearing problem in children is considered as a social issue as it is affecting their life.

Discussion

Children suffering from unilateral hearing loss can only listen to one component of the music, e.g. piano or bass but not both while listening to any song by wearing stereo headphones. This is due to the amplitude difference between the mediums. This is really a social problem as these children cannot listen to conversation, cannot localize sound and have problem in understanding speech in the presence of background noise.

Most of the studies conducted on the difficulties faced by children with UHL were completed in the 1980's. These children were facing higher risk for speech-language, academic lacking and social-emotional problems as compared to their normal hearing peers. They were found neglected in the classrooms as they were not given chance to get clarity of the speech. The children suffering from UHL are almost 10 times more likely to fail in a class than the normal children. They are found having low score in the intelligence tests this is mainly due to the hearing problem from which they are suffering from.

Treatment Options for Unilateral Hearing Loss

The treatment options that can be used for curing unilateral hearing loss are dependent on the degree of the hearing loss. Unilateral hearing loss can be treated by one of the following ways.

Contra-lateral Routing of Signal (CROS)

It helps the patient in detecting sound on the side of the ear that is ...