Hesperian Health Guides
Deciding What to Do for a Child with Hearing Loss
HealthWiki > Disabled Village Children > Chapter 31: Hearing Loss and Communication > Deciding What to Do for a Child with Hearing Loss
All children with hearing loss need love, understanding, and help learning to communicate. But children will need different kinds of help to communicate in whatever way works best for them. We must adapt our methods to the needs of the particular child and to the realities of the community where he lives.
| TO HELP A CHILD | ... born with complete hearing loss and has never heard speech | ... born with partial hearing loss and can hear some speech OR ... with complete hearing loss that began after hearing speech |
... with partial hearing loss that began after hearing speech and learning to speak |
| ... hear more clearly | A hearing aid will not help. | A hearing aid may help. | A hearing aid may help. |
| ... listen more carefully | It will not help to teach them to listen more carefully | It may help to teach them to listen more carefully to sounds. | It may help to teach them to listen more carefully to sounds. |
| ... learn to communicate | Learning to lip read and speak will be slow, difficult, and is usually not successful. It is better to help the child learn to communicate in whatever ways work best for her: first with her face, body, arms and hands, then a sign language, possibly adding pictures, reading and writing, finger spelling, and perhaps lip reading and speech. | They may understand some sounds. It is important to give them as much language as possible, try using Total Communication. Soon you will see which is the best way they can communicate with you. | The child can be helped to learn to lip read and to improve his speech. |
- If the child comes from an area where there are people with hearing loss who communicate in a national sign language, it is probably best to have people in that community teach sign language to the child and her family. That way, she can learn to communicate as fully and well as is possible for her.
- If the child lives in a small village where there are few people with hearing loss, none of whom know the national sign language, then learning that language may not help the child much. Probably it makes more sense for her to learn ways to communicate as best she can with those who can hear. This probably means a combination of methods, based on the signs and gestures people already use in the village, or ones the family creates at home, along with pictures, and later perhaps, reading and writing.
- Most children with hearing loss can learn quickly. Some may have brain injuries or other conditions that affect their ability to learn or to control their hands, lips, or voices. Find ways to help these children communicate however way they can: with sets of pictures, head movements, or eye movements.
TALKING TO A CHILD WITH HEARING LOSS
- When possible, talk in a quiet place without distractions. Get the child’s full attention.
- Don’t shout. Speak clearly, as loud as you usually speak to someone.
- Look directly at the child when you speak to him.
- Don’t repeat yourself. If the child doesn’t understand, say it another way.
- Don’t give up. Keep trying until the child understands you. Otherwise, he will feel like he has failed, not you.
Note: Some children without any hearing loss do not develop the ability to speak. A child with cerebral palsy may not control their mouth or tongue movement well enough to speak. Other children have cognitive delay and are late in learning to speak, or never learn. Other children for some unknown reason cannot speak. For all of these children, we need to look for ways to help them communicate as best they can. Even though these children do not have hearing loss, learning sign language or gestures could be helpful for their ability to communicate.