The child will have difficulty localizing sounds and voices. The child will not be able to understand speech when it is noisy or reverberant. Child may be accused of selective hearing due to discrepancies in speech understanding in quiet versus noise. Child may have behavior problems due to fatigue, inattention, or frustrations. Child likely to fail a grade or two in school.
Child misses most of group discussions.
Child likely to pass most school hearing screenings. Child does much better in an amplified classroom where the teacher's voice is slightly louder than the classroom environmental noise. Margie Littell Ulrich, CCC-A is a clinical audiologist and a contributing writer at HearingExchange. She practices audiology at the Mid-East Tennessee Regional Speech and Hearing Center in Dayton. She is also the chairman of the Children's Wellness Council of Tennessee.