A Parent's Guide to Hearing Loss

Produced by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program

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Speech

Speech is a skill that many people take for granted. But speech is a building block — a skill that helps build language. Parents can choose to have their child use this building block for communicating — that is, expressing themselves.

Speech is often used in combination with hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive devices. A child with some residual hearing may find it easier to learn speech than a child with no residual hearing. But, since this building block is used by a child to express him or herself to other people, one or more other building blocks must be used to help the child understand others.

Speaking may seem easy to a person with hearing. But for a child with hearing loss, speaking is often hard without proper training. Like all other building blocks, the skill of speaking must be learned. Often a speech-language pathologist must work with the baby and family.

Glossary

Building Block(s): "Building Blocks" refers to the different skills that parents can use to help their child learn language. There are many types of building blocks, and a family can pick and choose the building block (or blocks) that work best for their child and family. The following is a list of many commonly used building blocks.

• Conceptually Accurate Signed English (CASE)
• Cued Speech
• Finger Spelling
• Listening / Auditory Training
• Manually Coded English (MCE)
• Natural Gestures
• Speech
• Speech Reading (Lip Reading)

Hearing aids: Hearing aids make sounds louder and clearer. Hearing aids are be worn by people of any age — including infants. Young babies with hearing loss can better understand sounds using hearing aids. This gives them the chance to learn speech skills right from birth.

There are many styles of hearing aids. They can help many types of hearing losses — mild, moderate, severe, and profound. Your baby's audiologist will help you pick the best type for your baby's hearing loss. A young child is usually fitted with behind-the-ear (BTE) style hearing aids because they adjust better on growing ears. Behind-the-ear hearing aids come in skin tone as well as many bright colors.

Cochlear Implants: A cochlear implant is a surgically placed device that can help a person with severe to profound hearing loss. It gives that person a way to hear when a hearing aid is not enough. A cochlear implant sends sound signals directly to the hearing (auditory) nerve.

Assistive Listening Devices: There are many devices that can help children and adults with hearing loss. You can talk to your audiologist about which one (or ones) is best for your child Some of these devices include:

• Hearing Aids
• Cochlear Implants
• FM Systems
• Captioning
• Telephone amplifiers
• Flashing and vibrating alarms
• Audio loops systems
• Infra red listening devices
• Portable sound amplifiers
• TTY or TDD (Text Telephone or Telecommunications Device for the Deaf)

Speech-Language Pathologist: A speech language pathologist is a professional trained to know about how children learn language and to teach children how to use speech and language.

For more information or to order additional copies of "A Parent's Guide to Hearing Loss" visit CDC's website at www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/ehdi.