Sprechen und Sprache sowie konsekutive Störungen bei Kindern mit permanenten unilateralen sensorineuralen Hörstörungen

In the past, unilateral hearing impairment has been considered to be of little consequence for speech and language development. This attitude is changing considerably as research has revealed that children with congenital or postnatally acquired unilateral sensorineural hearing impairment are at risk for problems in speech and language development, academic learning, performance and grade repetition. In addition, unilateral hearing-impaired children tend to have communication difficulties and socioemotional problems, because their understanding of speech is impaired - especially in the presence of background noise. Their linguistic (like the academic) performance depends on the severity of the hearing loss. Children with unilateral hearing loss need individual, advantageous listening conditions in order to understand verbal signals in the same way as their normal-hearing peers and classmates. This article addresses unilateral sensorineural hearing loss and offers a description of selected international study results regarding language development, gives a sketch of secondary disorders at school and concludes with a synopsis.