Factors affecting the language development of preschool deaf children
There are a wide range of factors that affect the language development of preschool deaf children. Many of these factors are related to the degree and nature of their deafness, and their use of their hearing technology.
Your child’s degree of deafness
This might seem obvious but sometimes we need to remind ourselves of what our children are coping with from day to day, and that this will differ considerably depending on the extent of their deafness.
For us as adults, we only have to have a bad cold with blocked ears, or some water stuck in our ear after swimming, or even just be in a very noisy room with a lot of distractions trying to concentrate, to remind ourselves that deaf children are having to work very much harder than their hearing peers.
It stands to reason that the normally hearing child, and the child with a unilateral deafness (deafness in one ear), and the child with good low frequency hearing but reduced hearing in the high frequencies and the child born profoundly deaf in both ears and the children with a myriad of other types of deafness will all have very different experiences of sound. This, in turn, will impact on the development of their listening, understanding and spoken language skills during their preschool years. Later, many will make great progress and some might even catch up with their peers, but for now we must remind ourselves that delays in speech and language development are normal and to be expected – and that all progress, no matter how small, is to be highlighted and celebrated!
Your child’s “hearing age”
Another crucial factor is your child’s “hearing age” – how much ‘listening’ experience they have. By this, we mean for how long and how consistently your child has had access to good quality sound through the technology they have been given – be that hearing aids, cochlear implants, bone anchored hearing aids, etc.
A two year old child, whose deafness is identified at birth and fitted with hearing aids immediately will have had access to, and more experience of, sound than, for example, a two year old child whose deafness was identified later, or who is profoundly deaf and only recently undergone the operation for cochlear implants. The newly implanted child is learning to listen for the first time. Even if they had some hearing before, the sound they receive through their implants is likely to be quite different and will take time and a lot of support for them to learn to interpret the new sounds. We must set our expectations and approaches according to the needs of the child and not make any presumptions.
How consistently your child wears their hearing technology
As a baby or young toddler, many deaf children typically go through phases when they repeatedly take their hearing aids/cochlear implants out, sometimes dismantle them, hide them or even chew them.
Many, if not all, of our parents talk about the frustration of trying to persuade their child of the benefits of keeping in their hearing technology for meaningful amounts of time. This is often a phase as a baby or toddler, and hopefully now, as your child is getting older, this is happening less as they appreciate more and more how their technology enables them to access a fuller range of sounds.
Our parents talk about their child’s hearing aids
If this remains a problem for you please don’t panic! You are not alone. Take a look at some of parents who have got through this stage reflecting on how they managed and how, in time it got easier.
Check this page for more tips on encouraging your child to wear their hearing technology.
It is important that your child wears their technology for the majority of their waking day. Access to good quality sound is vital for the development of their listening and spoken language skills so if it continues to be a problem please do speak to your course leader for more help.
The cause of your child’s deafness – if known
Research continues all the time into the causes of deafness and over the last 10 years we have developed a far greater understanding of the different causes and their implications.
Nevertheless, despite a wide variety of tests it is not always possible to identify the cause of a child’s deafness and it remains true that for many families they may never know the cause of their own child’s deafness. If this is your situation, we know that this can be a cause for concern, particularly as you seek answers on behalf of your child and your family. However, we would like to reassure you that if you do not know the cause of your child’s deafness this by no way prevents your child from getting an accurate assessment of the degree of their deafness, or from them being provided with the best possible technology or indeed for them getting the appropriate support to develop their language skills to the fullest extent.
If you do know the cause of your child’s deafness, you will have a little more information to work with. Many – but by no means all – types of deafness result from or are a part of wider medical conditions, some of which may include additional needs. Depending on what these needs are, they might or might not impact on the speed and development of your child’s listening, understanding and spoken language. Sometimes, the additional needs are not immediately obvious and are only identified as children get older and they are asked to undertake more sophisticated tasks. Other children are deafened later though illnesses such as meningitis. Whatever the reason for your child’s deafness, we need consider what this might mean for their language – and indeed general – development.
Whether or not you know the cause of your child’s deaf, you must set your sights high and think ambitiously on their behalf!
Monitoring your child’s individual progress
As you progress through the lessons, it is important that you look at your child’s progress with all these factors in mind. Our aim is to encourage your child to reach their own particular amazing potential, whatever that might be.
All parents compare their children to other children (either other children of the same age or the progress that siblings made at a similar age) – it is the most natural thing in the world to do, but typically it doesn’t help you to feel better about yourself!
In these situations we would encourage you to take a step back, and remind yourself of your child’s hearing age. Remind yourself how far they have come already, think about all the baby steps they have taken since their deafness was first identified, and be comforted that you have a plan in place to support them into the future!
So in the rest of this lesson we will look at different activities that will help you to assess your child’s communication skills. These are not one-off activities, but ones that will help you throughout your child’s journey. They require no technical understanding or knowledge of language development, rather they ask you to think about what it is your child is doing on a daily basis, give you ideas as to how to monitor this and also how you can best record what you see.
