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Occurs when one ear has a normal sensitivity and the
other ear has at least a mild (26 dB to 40 dB HL) permanent hearing
impairment(Flexer, 1994 p.37)
“Unilateral hearing loss may go undetected – the
child who also experiences ear infections, is at extreme risk for emotional
and behavioural difficulties that result from unmanaged hearing impairment”
(Cargill and Flexer, 1991 in Flexer, 1994,p.38) |
Pure tone
audiometry with a hearing level of at least 26-40 dB in one ear and normal
sensitivity in the other (Flexer,
1994 p.37)
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 |
Currently there
are no treatments to reverse the loss (Bergstrom,
1988) |
Hearing loss
Impaired
auditory localization
Difficulty
understanding speech in presence of competing noise
Loss of
binaural advantage:
binaural
summation
binaural
release from
masking
(Diefendore,
1996 p.5) |
As for
sensorineural hearing loss and additional problems:
Difficulty
localizing sound sources
More
distractible
More frustrated
More dependent
Less attentive
Less confident
than their
‘normal’ hearing peers.(Cargill and Flexer, 1991 in (Flexer,
1994p. 37)
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Tasks involving
language concepts may be depressed (Diefendorf, 1996 p.5) |
Lags in
academic achievement:
reading
spelling
arithmetic
Verbally based
learning difficulties
High rate of
grade repetition
Self-described
embarrassment
Annoyance
Confusion
Helplessness
Less
independence in the classroom’ (Diefendorf, 1996 p.5)
Between 10%
and 40% of classroom instruction may be missed (Blair,
1996p. 321)
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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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