Hearing is about more than just the ears
World Hearing Day was March 3rd, and we bring you some insights into the importance of the sense of hearing, right from babyhood to adult life
Hearing is much more than about the ears. If your sense of hearing is affected, many other capabilities are impacted too. Hearing actually happens in the auditory part of the brain and the ears are just the doorways for sounds.
On World Hearing Day, auditory experts tell us how hearing is connected to social and individual development, including speech and linguistic skills and cognitive and literary development. They also talk of the need for rehabilitation and therapy after undergoing a cochlear implant.
HEARING LINKED TO BRAIN
When the doorway to the brain, that is, the ears, are affected, sensory information is not passed on to the brain where the meaning of the sound heard is actually deciphered. “Brain development after birth is dependent on environmental experiences. A child learns language and speech and to distinguish other sounds because of neural connections being established between the auditory part of the brain and the other parts after the sounds heard are decoded in the former. This is critical to literacy and knowledge. If neural connections are not established early in life, it will lead to permanent and irreversible damage to the functioning of the brain, and impact the child’s speech, cognition and literacy,” says Dr. Deeksha Rayapati, auditory verbal therapy (AVT) specialist at KIMS hospital.
NEED FOR EARLY IDENTIFICATION AND INTERVENTION
Early identification of children with congenital hearing loss and timely intervention are important because enjoying normal hearing when the child is still young will tremendously impact various developmental milestones. AVT should start from the time of the cochlear implant surgery, says Dr Deeksha.
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Hearing and understanding a language from as early as possible in a child’s life is critical to brain growth. In the first three years of life, the foundation for all of the child’s future thinking and learning is built through talk and interaction with parents and other significant adults, something that can only happen with normal hearing.
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Hearing and experiencing various sounds during the early years will enhance a child’s cognitive abilities including attention, memory, thought process, problem solving and reasoning skills, apart from language.
LITERACY DEVELOPMENT
To begin the literacy journey, infants and children should be read aloud to daily. Studies show that reading aloud is one of the most important activities, as exposure to storybooks is a major factor in developing a pre-schooler’s vocabulary. Children who are read aloud to from a young age learn over twice as many new words as others do. For a child to benefit from such interaction, normal hearing is indispensable.
SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
Being able to communicate with others is a key element of human functioning. Information is exchanged in the form of language, signals and behaviour. Hearing is most essential for oral communication to happen with ease and clarity.
NEED FOR AVT
“Hearing aids or cochlear implants can help the child to hear. But such children also require effective rehabilitation through AVT so that they pay attention to the sounds they hear and learn to comprehend them, which is crucial for keeping pace with their non-hearing-impaired peers in terms of language, speech, literacy, knowledge, and social development,” concludes Dr Siva Prasad.