Sound Beginnings: The Impact of Hearing Loss on Children’s Speech Development
On average, one Australian child is identified with a hearing loss every day. Over 90% of these children are born to hearing parents. Thanks to the introduction of Universal Newborn Hearing Screening in Australia 15 years ago, children with hearing loss are being identified earlier than ever. This early detection, combined with advancements in hearing technology, has significantly improved the outcomes for children whose parents choose a listening and spoken language pathway.
The Importance of Hearing and Listening in Learning
Hearing and listening are fundamental for almost all children’s learning. If a child cannot clearly hear or attend to spoken information, their speech and spoken language skills are likely to be impacted. This can lead to difficulties in school, social situations, self-esteem, and future career choices.
Speech vs. Language: Clarifying the Terms
Before discussing the impact of hearing loss on speech development, it is important to distinguish between speech and language:
- Speech: How we produce sounds and words and how clearly we articulate them.
- Language: The words we understand and use and how we combine them into sentences to communicate.
Effective communication requires both good speech and language skills. A child with good language skills but poor speech skills can use many words but may not produce them clearly. Conversely, a child with good speech skills but poor language skills can articulate words clearly but may not use many words or follow grammar rules, resulting in ineffective communication.
The Impact of Hearing Loss on Speech Development
Research shows that auditory development starts in the womb around 20 weeks (about 4 and a half months) into pregnancy and continues into our 20s. In the first six months of life, infants can hear and distinguish speech sounds from any language. Between six to twelve months, they become less sensitive to sounds not part of their native language. At this early age, infants are already focusing on the speech sounds used at home and in their community. What a baby hears in their environment forms the foundation of their speech sound system. Disruptions or delays in accessing auditory information can lead to various speech delays, such as delayed onset of reduplicated babbling (e.g. ba-ba-ba) and limited consonant and vowel inventories.
Remember:
If you want to learn more about speech development and the impact of hearing loss, join our 2-hour training course “Speaking about Speech” on Monday, September 2nd.
