When parents have a child with hearing impairment, they are presented with a variety of challenges regarding their child’s social, physical, and academic development.  Hearing impairment is defined as “the temporary or permanent loss of some hearing in one or both the years” (Alic, 2011.) Parents with such children are immediately placed in the position of becoming advocates for their children in order to get their needs, including special learning needs, met in an adequate way.  This paper will discuss various aspects of hearing impairments, the causes, treatment options, and rehabilitation methods and focus on the individualized educational plan, or IEP, goals that should be established for any children with hearing impairments, using as an example the plan for a 12 year old child.

In young children, there are basically three sorts of hearing impairment that can occur: conductive hearing loss, which is usually a temporary interference when receiving sound from the outer ear to the middle or inner ear; sensory neural hearing impairment, which is a lasting abnormality of the cochlear hair cells of the inner ear, the auditory nerves, or the auditory center of the brain; and finally, mixed hearing impairment, which is a combination of the above named impairments (Alic, 2011.) If the hearing impairments occur before a child learns to speak, it is termed “prelingual,” as opposed to post-lingual, or occurring after the child has begun to speak.  For children who are classified as having normal hearing, this is defined as the ability to hear sounds ranging from 0 to 25 decibels.  Children with hearing impairments are categorized in the following methods: mild, where a child can hear sounds from 26 to 40 decibels and where speech and having conversation is typically not affected, although distance sounds may be hard to hear; moderate impairments, in which a child can hear sounds from 41 to 70 decibels with the ability to form sounds and to hear normal conversation tones is affected; and severe impairment, in which a child may hear sounds from 71 to 90 decibels and requires a hearing aid in order to pick up conversations spoken at normal levels.  In profound hearing impairment, a child can merely hear sounds above 90 decibels and although a child can use a hearing aid which might help, he or she will not be able to speak with normal articulation.

Conductive hearing impairment is usually caused by otitis media, which is an infection of the middle ear common in children between the ages of six months and four years.  It is believed that about 20% of children have an episode of acute otitis media every year, and it affects boys and girls equally.  This occurs most commonly in children of parents who smoke.  Over the age of eight, this condition becomes less common.  Chronic secretory otitis media is the most common cause of temporary hearing impairment in children under the age of eight, and it is more common in males but rare in children over the age of eight (Alic, 2011.)

The most common congenital abnormality in American infants is deafness; nearly 12,000 American infants annually are born with some degree of hearing impairments.  Three out of every 1000 children begin life with significant hearing impairment, with about 65% of these children born completely deaf and an additional 12% losing complete hearing before the age of three.  In addition, 14% of children ages 6 to 19 in the United States have measurable hearing loss in one or both ears.  Even more disturbingly, hearing impairment caused by noise is increasing in the United States where it is not unusual for teenagers to become permanently hearing impaired because of the high-frequency decibel level of live music events and recorded music to which they expose themselves.