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Minimal & Mild
Sensorineural hearing loss is caused by damage to
the sensory hair cells in the cochlea (Flexer, 1994 p. 55)
Damage can occur due to :
Congenital effects
Ototoxicity
-Antibiotics
-Non Steroid
Anti-Inflammatory
Drugs such as:
-Aspirin
-Ibuprofen
(Neurofen)
Noise
-Personal Stereo
-Toys
-Loud sounds
for extended
periods of time
-Sudden loud
sounds
The effect is accumulative and interactive
– thus taking certain drugs, plus wearing personal
stereo’s at high volume will increase the likelihood of damage. |
Pure tone
audiometry with a hearing level of 16-35 dB (Flexer,
1994 p.36)
No visual
evidence of conductive loss
detected by
less than a 10 dB HL difference between bone conduction and air conduction
in pure tone tests and
by
a
normal result on impedance measures including the tympanogram, static
compliance and acoustic reflex
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Currently there
are no treatments to reverse the damage. |
Hearing loss
15-40 dB
Speech
recognition depressed
Auditory
discrimination depressed
(Diefendorf,
1996p.5)
Difficulty
keeping up with
fast-paced
communication
(Northern
& Downs, 1991)
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May shout or
talk in a loud voice
Poor word
discrimination ability
Better
hearing in the low
frequencies
than in the high frequencies
May confuse
or miss
consonants
as these are high frequency sounds
Difficulties
caused by
Recruitment
– which is when there is an abnormal,
rapid
growth in loudness
once the
threshold of
hearing has
been crossed
Have greater
difficulty
in noisy
surroundings
than those
with conductive
hearing
loss or normal
hearing
Reduces
Childs ability to
benefit
from passive
learning,
thus need to be taught directly what many
children
learn incidentally
Possible
tinnitus – ringing, buzzing, roaring or chirping sounds in the ears
(Flexer,
1994 p.19)
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Potential
problems in articulation
Problems in
auditory attention
Problems in
auditory memory
Problems in
auditory comprehension
Possible delays
in expressive oral language
Impact on
syntax and semantics
Impact on
vocabulary development (Diefendorf,
1996 p.5)
Difficulty
detecting subtle conversational cues which could cause the child to respond
inappropriately (Northern
& Downs, 1991)
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Lowered
academic achievement :
arithmetic
problem
solving
math concepts
vocabulary
reading
comprehension
Educational
delays progress systematically with age (Diefendorf,
1996 p.5)
More fatigued
than peers, due to increased effort needed to hear (Hicks
& Tharpe, 2002)
Difficulty
hearing faint or distant speech(Blair,
1996)
Between 10%
and 40% of classroom instruction may be missed (Blair,
1996p. 321) |
Classroom Acoustics analysed and improved by :
Teachers voice signal to noise ratio +15 dB (ASHA,1995)
Reverberation reduced to no greater than .0.4 -0.6 s (Finitzo-Hiever
& Tillman, 1978).
Ambient noise level should be no higher than 35 dBA (Smaldino
& Crandell, 1995)...
Installation of an FM sound-field amplification system to help achieve
the above requirements e.g.(Crandell
& Smaldino, 1995, Flexer, 1995, Palmer, 1997)
Possibly the use of Neural re-training may help - e.g.
FastForWord (Scientific
Learning Corporation)
Earobics (Cognitive
Concepts, 2002)
Or
Sound therapy (Pittelkow,
2001)
Perhaps the following general “good teaching” strategies may also help:
Specific teaching strategies
gaining attention
short sentences
eye contact
pause between sentences
restate simply
monitor child and repeat
when necessary.
.. hearing,
listening and
compliance
rules established
(Rowe
& Rowe, 2000)
Tips for
Teaching Boys include:
Highly
structured lessons
Greater
emphasis on teacher-directed work in preference to group work…(Rowe
& Rowe, 2002 p.18)
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