Hearing problems in Children - Sky Speech and Hearing Care

According to one of the recent reports of World Health Organization (WHO), there is an increasing prevalence of hearing problems amongst young children in recent times. The report states that as many as 32 million kids worldwide are impaired with hearing loss. What is more startling in this report is that out of the total cases 60% of such cases were preventable. This means that 19 million children who suffered could have been saved from such irreversible hearing loss. Experts are of the opinion that a child who struggles to hear may also struggle to learn to speak. He or she may therefore underachieve at school and end up being socially isolated.

Experts feel that many of the ear related problems can be treated easily if treated in time. It is recommended that you do not ignore any sign of hearing loss at an early age of your children.

Hearing Loss Treatment - Sky Speech and Hearing

 Why hearing problems occur in children?

According to WHO major causes of the problem are usually genetic causes, infections such as measles, mumps, rubella and meningitis. It may also happen due to complications at birth, including prematurity, low birth weight and neonatal jaundice. You must also note that use of medicines unknowingly can also lead to hearing loss. Sky speech and hearing loss treatment gives some details of dos and don'ts here.

Dos and Don’ts

As a teacher or as parents you should never slap kids, landing the pressure close to their ears. Shock and trauma to ears can lead to severe damage to ear drums. This may ultimately result in loss of hearing capabilities for the child.

While the child is bathing you should ensure that water does not enter the ears. You must also avoid swimming in unclean water at all costs. This might to lead to ear infections. If your child swims regularly he or she must use swimming caps.

Experts say that infants must be medically tested for the presence of hearing problems. Early detection leads to better treatment. Providing better treatment from hearing aid centre Coimbatore.

You must also see to it that no sharp object is inserted in the ears at any point of time.

You must ensure that your child is kept away from loud music. This could be from radio, television or any other source. The frequency of these at most times is more than enough to impact the hearing capability. According to experts as a result of this the child start developing hearing problems so steadily that you do not even get to know they have a hearing problem.

Electronic gadgets can cause speech delay - Sky Speech and Hearing Care

Delay the use of touch screen electronics for your baby or risk speech delay

A new study has found a link between the use of handheld devices by babies and speech delay. The study was presented at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting. The research studied the correlation between speech delay and time spent by children between ages six months and two years with handheld electronics (smartphones, tablets and electronic games). Of the study group of 1,070 kids, about 70% of the children had no handheld screen time and 20% spent an average of 28 minutes per day using handheld, touch screen electronic devices. The researchers identified a significant association between handheld screen time and expressive speech disorder. They also found that for every 30 minutes of screen use above the average the risk increased 49%. Analyzed by speech therapy centres in Coimbatore.

 

Hearing aid centre Coimbatore

More research is needed

 

This was initial research and the only concrete finding was the need for more research. Regardless, we speech therapy for children are not surprised by the speech delay results. Many of the children are obsessed with the smartphones and iPads and if they are in sight it is very difficult to keep them motivated to do any other activity. Smartphone use definitely  seems to work against improving or promoting social language skills.

 

Note, this study looked at very young children.

Technology is great to motivate pre-schoolers and grade school children to learn (ex. preschoolers learning letters or grade school kids practicing math facts). In developing infants it sure seems to cause some trouble.

Hence it is important to take sensible decisions as parents to help your child progress.