Early Detection of Hearing and Speech Disorders

Are you worried about your 3-year-old or younger child, who doesn’t seem to listen? Has your child doesn’t speak? Or does your child weep often? These could be the signs of Speech and Hearing Disorder.

Most of the children suffering from speech and hearing disorders lead to significant effect of academics, personal and as well as on social life too. Some children will develop normal speech and hearing skills at the time they enter school, and there are some who will not able to develop those skills. People many times, misunderstand that speech and hearing treatment cannot begin until a child begins to talk.

 

1. Language Disorders

Languages consist of speaking, reading, and writing and also understanding. Children suffering from language disorders face more skills problems. Language disorder could be either spoken or written or both.

Language disorders are classified as:

When the patient finds difficulty in understanding then it is considered as Receptive Language issues.

When the patient faces difficulty while expressing any ideas or thoughts, that problem is categorized as Expressive Language issues.

When the patient faces difficulty in understanding and as well as in speaking language, this disorder falls under Mixed receptive-expressive language issues category.

Following are the ways to improve language disorders:

You can help your child to improve the language disorder by:

• Start reading, communicating, and playing with the child.
• Every time listen and respond to what the child is asking.
• Communicate in more than one language
• With the passage of time, start indulging your child in long sentences
• Ask the child to play with other children
•  Try to use unique words
• Talk about daily routine

 

Speech Disorders

Speech is the combination of sounds and words. It is quite normal for any child not to recognize some sounds, but it is important for them to recognize some of them.

Signs of Speech disorders include:-

• Says p, b, m, h, and incorrectly in words most of the time (1–2 years)
• Says k, g, f, t, d, and incorrectly in words most of the time (2–3 years)
• Produces speech that is unclear, even to familiar people (2–3 years)

 

You can help your child to improve the Speech disorder by:

• Saying sounds the right way when you talk. The child requires suitable speech models
• Not correcting speech sounds. It is okay if your child says some sounds the wrong way.

2. Hearing Loss

Some children have a Hearing loss at birth. Some children get the hearing power as they grow up, but in some cases, there are children who face such problems of Hearing Loss.

You can help your child to improve the Hearing Loss disorder by:

• Making sure your child has a newborn hearing screening.
• In case of ear infection, consult to ENT specialist.
• Seeing an audiologist if you worry about your child’s hearing.