Hearing and Kids

Anyone out there sick of hearing about Covid? I certainly am. I am one of the lucky ones who has had both vaccine shots. It is a great relief. But what is happening to people with hearing loss? Adult friends who have hearing loss talk about how difficult it is for them to manage in many situations. Masks distort the

When children are little, parents explain about their child’s hearing loss. When someone asks “What are those things in his ears?”, parents say something like “those are his hearing aids, they help him hear better.” If children ask more questions, we might add something like “Some people wear eyeglasses to help them see better and some people wear hearing aids

As part of helping kids understand the need for good communication it is important to talk about the people they need to communicate with. Especially as kids get older, they need to realize that the world is bigger than it was when they were little. They need to know that they will need to be able to communicate with a

Unfortunately, many school districts do not have an educational audiologist. What does that mean? Well, It means that there is no one in the school district who really understands hearing loss and its effect on learning. There is no one who fully understands how to monitor personal wearable technology. There is no one who understands classroom acoustics, and can help

Dear Readers: During this holiday season, the editors at Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM) are taking some time off. However, we are not leaving you without anything to read on our blog this week. Instead, we are publishing a special holiday edition filled with what we call our Readers’ Choices. Our Readers’ Choices featured this week are the posts

Holidays can be stressful times for all of us. There are lots of things happening and much more to do than during other times. This year holidays have the added problem of Covid and, for many families it is will be a more lonely time. Some of us are not spending time with families that we normal would see. And

I have been hearing from several parents asking for help with remote learning issues. The problems the kids are having should be expected: Masks are covering the teacher’s mouth so lipreading is not possible Masks, especially those close to the mouth are really distorting the speech signal The signal coming through the computer is further distorted When the teacher turns

As we know, most children with hearing loss find themselves in a classroom with no other children with hearing loss. They may pass other kids with hearing loss when they go to the audiologist, but they may not have many friends with hearing loss. While mainstream learning gives these kids amazing opportunities to be exposed to typical language, build literacy

This week’s Hearing Journal published an article by The Vanderbilt group (Thompson, Benitez-Berra and Tharpe) talking about the value of remote microphone systems for home use for children with hearing loss. I was delighted to see this article. This is something I have been pushing for a long time. The number or words a child hears is directly related to

There is no doubt that children with hearing loss need educational audiology services in schools. There is also no doubt that there are not sufficient educational audiologists out there to meet the needs of the kids. As school budgets get cut, special needs kids have their needs cut. Some school districts share educational audiology services through cooperative services. Some consult