Many times we have been able to hear some father or mother say something similar to this: "My son is deaf but he hears very well with the hearing aid" And although generally the deafness, hearing loss and hearing impairment they are used as words of similar meaning, the truth is that they are not exactly the same, and we must be careful when using one term or another.
It is important to know what each of these deficiencies means, since in the face of a possible intervention, and even schooling, it will be done in one way or another, in a way that is as appropriate as possible for the child who suffers from some type of alteration in the way of receiving the information that comes through hearing.
It is very important to know the type of hearing impairment our child has since its consequences will be greater or lesser depending on the characteristics of his problem.
So, the hearing impairment It refers to the existence of a hearing loss, regardless of the degree of hearing loss. That is, when we talk about hearing impairment, we refer to a large concept that includes the term of hearing loss and deafness.
If the hearing loss is not equal to or greater than 90 decibels, we refer to hearing loss. If the hearing loss exceeds that threshold of hearing, we talk about deafness.
It is very important to know how to distinguish between hearing loss and deafness. The latter is usually reserved for those children who do not have a functional hearing and, therefore, do not allow them to acquire oral language by hearing, although they can do so by visual means. In this way, vision becomes the most important means of communication, since it is the main link between the child and the world.
When we talk about hearing loss, although hearing is poor, it is functional for everyday life and allows the child to process linguistic information through hearing, although in his way of expressing himself orally we can find some problem when articulating or singing what They mean. These types of problems will vary depending on the degree of hearing loss.
At present, it is very rare to be able to find a total hearing loss, the most frequent being that the child has some degree of residual hearing. Thus the term hearing impairment is increasingly used instead of deafness, which has normally been related to total hearing loss. For similar reasons, more and more are being spoken about children with hearing loss instead of deaf children.
As you can see, even if they look the same, deafness, hearing loss and hearing impairment They show important differences that will be of great help when it comes to providing our child with a treatment as possible as possible, something very important for a specialized intervention.
