If your child struggles with reading, get their hearing checked! Read on to learn more about the link between reading difficulties including dyslexia and hearing loss.
Reading difficulties and dyslexia refer to persistent, specific literacy difficulties including reading or spelling. The word ‘dyslexia’ is from Greek and means ‘trouble with words’. Dyslexia is estimated to affect 10% of Australians. There are many children in the education system who have undiagnosed reading difficulties, but do struggle to read and write. While we don’t know exactly why some people have reading and writing difficulties, research has indicated that dyslexia can run in families. New research has shown that many children with reading and writing difficulties also have mild hearing loss. This link between literacy and hearing means that children with dyslexia or reading difficulties should have their hearing checked regularly.
Reading difficulties and dyslexia is often characterised by:
- Difficulties learning the sound and letter connections needed for reading and writing
- Reading slowly and making many errors
- Lack of fluency in reading
- Specific difficulties with letters, numbers, words, sequences, or oral descriptions
- Frequent spelling mistakes
- Spelling phonetically (e.g. one= ‘wun’)
- Spelling a word differently each time it is written
- When writing, frequent letter reversals, deletions, additions, repetitions or substitutions in numbers and words
Hearing loss or hearing impairment is any level of difficulty with hearing, and can be mild, moderate or severe. Speech Pathologists are constantly referring children to have their hearing formally tested to eliminate a hearing difficulty which may cause a speech sound difficulty or language delay. “Many children in school may have an undetected mild hearing loss, which makes it harder for them to access the curriculum,” said Helen Breadmore, from Coventry University.
You may ask why reading difficulties and hearing loss have been linked in this article. However, these two very separate conditions have actually been found to be linked. Coventry University in the UK found that 25% of people with reading difficulties also had hearing difficulties when their hearing was screened. This is a fascinating an important connection, as this link wasn’t known before.
More information about research showing the connection between reading difficulties and hearing loss:
- 195 children aged 8-10 participated in the study, including 36 with reading difficulties and 29 children with regular ear infections
- Researchers looked at reading and writing ability of all the children, and specifically at how the children used the structures of words based on their meaning and sounds
- Children with frequent ear infections had difficulties with literacy tasks, especially phonological tasks (tasks requiring a child to manipulate sounds)
- Children with reading difficulties had specific difficulty with morphology (the grammatical structures) and in phonological tasks
Interestingly, the parents of the children with mild hearing loss had not noticed or reported any hearing loss, meaning it was undetected. This gives us important insight into children with dyslexia. Essentially this is evidence to support the need for children with reading difficutlies to have a hearing test, as they are more likely to have hearing loss than children without reading difficulties.
Research author Helen Breadmore stated “a mild-moderate hearing loss will make the perception of speech sounds difficult particularly in a classroom environment with background noise and other distractions”.
Based on this new research we encourage parents with children who have reading difficulties or a diagnosis of dyslexia to attend regular hearing screenings as undiagnosed hearing difficulties may be having a significant impact on children’s literacy learning.
If your child has difficulties with reading, writing, or processing sounds, contact us to discuss how we can help and give you suggestions about referrals for hearing tests.
Ask us about your child’s reading, writing or hearing
How do I get my child’s hearing checked?
Speech Pathologists can make referrals to audiologists. You can also get a referral from your GP. Please refer to the below website if you would like more information on hearing tests: http://www.schn.health.nsw.gov.au/find-a-service/health-medical-services/audiology-hearing-tests
Reference:
Carroll, J.M. and Breadmore, H.L. (2017). Not all phonological awareness deficits are created equal: evidence from a comparison between children with Otitis Media and poor readers. Developmental Science, 21(3). DOI: 10.1111/desc.12588.