It is no wonder that a young child s health problems affect families and entire communities. Chronic and disabling problems create serious and daunting challenges for those affected. The causes of childhood impairment of hearing are not likely to be prevented unlike the hearing loss in people in teens and adults. Some times an inherited disorder can be the cause of hearing loss. In young children, a malformed inner ear or a neurological disorder affects the ear s ability to channel the sound from the outer to the inner ear. If hearing loss in childhood is inherited, knowledgeable family members can look into the problem and its treatment.
Congenital problem, often, is the cause of childhood hearing impairment. This occurs from an ailment or poisonous exposure of the child s mother during her pregnancy. Meningitis or Measles infection may also cause hearing loss to a normally hearing child. This sudden impairment comes like a bolt from the blue for the family partial hearing loss is not easily detected and early treatment is not given to the child as the parents are unsuspecting and unaware of the warning signs.
Development Affected
Childhood hearing loss, before the child develops language skills, can be devastating. There is no delay in developing language skills for children born severely impaired in signing families. But those with impairment in childhood in non-signing families have serious problems and obstacles in learning language. A child under six years is still trying to learn to communicate and socialize. By an early detection of hearing loss and the use of a hearing aid the child can learn to communicate normally. A social circle using a sign language can help the child, male or female, in developing communication at a normal age. A youngster with childhood hearing loss who can lip read and speak loudly does not do well as the signing child because he cannot pick up auditory social clues. It is only for the family of the child with hearing loss to find out the problem and take proper decisions.
[tags]Hearing Loss, Stapes, Auditory Skills[/tags]