In a related benefit, teachers using amplification systems report fewer medical problems related to strained vocal cords. Why Students Can t Hear Many younger students simply cannot hear properly to begin with, having yet to develop a mature sense of hearing. According to Karen L. Anderson, an educational audiologist with the Puyallup School District in Puyallup, Wash., the auditory paths in the brain can take 15 years to mature fully. Other students hear with difficulty because of what audiologists call fluctuating hearing loss related to ear infections commonly suffered by children. Ninety percent of all school children will have at least one ear infection, Anderson says.
Some ear infections are medically significant and require treatment.
Many ear problems aren t medically significant and go untreated. But all of these problems can cause hearing loss, even if it s just temporary, and that is educationally significant. We have to do a better job of identifying students with hearing loss. Other causes of hearing loss include loud noises, medications and certain illnesses. In a recent study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers tested approximately 6,100 children between the ages of six and 19 for hearing loss.