What are four potential speech problems of children who are deaf or hard of hearing?

Answer 1

• Children with hearing loss comprehend and produce shorter and simpler sentences than children with normal hearing.
• Children with hearing loss often have difficulty understanding and writing complex sentences, such as those with relative clauses ("The teacher whom I have for math was sick today.") or passive voice ("The ball was thrown by Mary.")
• Children with hearing loss often cannot hear word endings such as-sor-ed. This leads to misunderstandings and misuse of verb tense, pluralization, nonagreement of subject and verb, and possessives.
• Children with hearing loss often cannot hear quiet speech sounds such as "s," "sh," "f," "t," and "k" and therefore do not include them in their speech. Thus, speech may be difficult to understand.
• Children with hearing loss may not hear their own voices when they speak. They may speak too loudly or not loud enough. They may have a speaking pitch that is too high. They may sound like they are mumbling because of poor stress, poor inflection, or poor rate of speaking.
• Children with hearing loss have difficulty with all areas of academic achievement, especially reading and mathematical concepts.
• Children with mild to moderate hearing losses, onaverage, achieve one to four grade levels lower than their peers with normal hearing, unless appropriate management occurs.
• Children with severe to profound hearing loss usually achieve skills no higher than the third- or fourth-grade level, unless appropriate educational intervention occurs early.
• The gap in academic achievement between children with normal hearing and those with hearing loss usually widens as they progress through school.
• The level of achievement is related to parental involvement and the quantity, quality, and timing of the support services children receive.