Is it possible to have hearing loss and it does not affect your speech?

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Anonymous asks:

Member Added on Feb 2, 2010

My son is 4 and his teacher and I haven't noticed him struggling to hear. his doctor detected noticible hearing loss and is sending to an audiologist. She is saying that it is both ears but the left is much worse. He seems to her the teacher and I when we talk to him. Could it be something other than actual hearing loss?

In Topics: Physical Health, Speech or language impairment, Hearing loss and hearing disorders

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Expert

Wayne Yankus

Jan 30, 2010

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What the Expert Says:

The operative word is "loss" which implies there was hearing before. Therefore, it would not affect speech. However, if you lose hearing at a pretoddler age, before you have developed speech, you will be noticed. Some folks have minimal loss due to medicines, illness, and environment and are less affected. If you are old enough to remember pre 1986 before the HIB vaccine, those children who survived Hemophilus Influenza eppiglotitis or meningitis most were hearing damaged and had noticeable speech deficiency if at a pre school age when they were infected. The HIB vaccine essentially stopped the disease.

Wayne Yankus, MD, FAAP
expert panelist: pediatrics

Resources:

www.aap.org

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Additional Answers (1)

LesaThomas writes:

Also have them test for Auditory Neuropathy. I'm not a doctor, but as a deaf educator, I had two children in my class of 5 with this type of hearing loss. The best way to describe it is that hearing is sort of on a switch...on/off/on/off. You never know if it's on or off when they are young. Both of my students had hearing loss on top of AN. Good luck.
Lesa

Resources:

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/neuropathy.asp

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