Jj is for Jottings 89.  Unilateral Hearing Loss.

This is the third article on hearing loss.  The previous articles are about fluctuating hearing loss and effects of hearing loss on speech, language and literacy.

WHAT IS UNILATERAL HEARING LOSS?

Unilateral hearing loss is hearing loss in one ear only (‘uni’=one; ‘lateral’=side).  You would think that the sound would travel around to the other side of the head into the other ear, and so a unilateral hearing loss wouldn’t cause many problems.  This is actually not the case.  I experienced this quite clearly many years ago, when my speech therapy child was sitting beside me.  He didn’t seem to be hearing me properly, and it turned out that his hearing was down in his right ear.  We swapped places and it made a huge difference – he heard everything from then onwards.  There were only two of us in the room, and no background noise, and I would have assumed that he could have heard me quite well.  After all, his left ear wasn’t all that much further away than his right ear.  It seems that sound isn’t as good at getting around corners as I had assumed.  It was a great lesson to learn early on in my career.

EFFECTS OF UNILATERAL HEARING LOSS.

Recent research tells us that children with unilateral hearing loss have significantly poorer receptive and expressive language skills than their siblings.  (Note that they are being compared with their siblings when at the same age, and it is safe to assume that they have similar language input at home, since they have the same parents.)  Given the relationship between language and literacy, the child with unilateral hearing loss is more susceptible to failure in school – depending on the severity of the hearing loss and on how early in life it occurred, of course.  Here are the problems:

The child can’t localize sound. That means he will have no idea which direction sound comes from. He won’t be able to understand if you call from one room to another. In fact, he may not understand if you call from across the room when you are both in the same room. In the classroom, if the teacher turns away to write on the board and continues to talk, or walks around the room and talks, the child probably will understand nothing being said.

 

It takes two good ears to separate speech out from noise.  So, as background noise increases, the child (or adult) will have more and more difficulty understanding speech. In fact speech may become unintelligible in noise. This makes it very difficult for a child in school. He should never sit close to an open door or window, the fan of a heater or air conditioner, or any other type of noise. The good ear should always be towards the teacher and other children.

 

UNILATERAL HEARING LOSS VERSUS BILATERAL HEARING LOSS.

The advantage of unilateral hearing loss is that it affects only one ear.  The disadvantages are that it is more difficult to pick up the problem in the first place, and that the child may not be deemed to have a ‘significant hearing loss’ because it is only in one ear. Therefore the child may not get the intervention he needs – maybe in the form of amplification, and adjustments made in the classroom situation so as to maximise the good ear.  Parents of a child with unilateral hearing loss may have to advocate strongly for the necessary changes at school to optimise the child’s ability to access the curriculum.  These changes would be automatic for a child with bilateral hearing loss.

MANAGING UNILATERAL HEARING LOSS.

If your child has unilateral hearing loss, keep these points in mind:

• Talk from the front or the “good” side.
• The speaker needs to be within a couple of metres of the child.
• The child needs to see the person speaking, and to be encouraged to face watch for visual cues.
• Keep background noise to a minimum.

In the classroom a sound field system may be helpful.  This would need to be discussed with the audiologist.  Preferential seating is important here, too.  Reducing background noise can be trickier in the classroom than at home, but is an important goal.  Quiet surroundings will enhance learning for all the children in the class, except during co-operative tasks.  It is also important to check whether the child understands set tasks in the classroom.

Check out the Facebook page: Aa is for Alpacas.