What can I do if I am concerned about my child’s hearing?
If your child’s response to sound seems different or inconsistent, you should request a hearing evaluation to check your child’s hearing. Children as young as newborns can have their hearing tested. Health care providers can screen hearing. When a child fails a hearing screening, you should take the child to an audiologist for a hearing evaluation. The audiologist specializes in diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss.
How may language learning be affected by Otitis Media?
During the first three years when children have the most problems with otitis media, they are learning to speak and understand words. Children learn to do this by interacting with people around them. It may be harder to hear and understand speech if sound is muffled by fluid in the middle ear. Some researchers report that frequent hearing loss in children with middle ear fluid may lead to speech and language difficulties. However, other researchers have not found this to be true. Researchers are still studying this. In the meantime, it’s best to pay special attention to the language development of children who have middle ear fluid.
What can I do if I’m concerned about my child’s speech and/or language development?
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When you have concerns about your child’s language development, talk to your child’s health care provider. A speech-language pathologist specializes in diagnosis and treatment of speech and language problems. The next two pages describe milestones in language development. |
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