The importance of hearing testing isn't widely understood by many parents. Parents may schedule appointments with an opthamologist for an eye exam for their children at regular intervals - but never think to similarly schedule a hearing test with an audiologist. We think perhaps that if a child responds to our voice in a room of our homes that their hearing must be fine. Jokingly we think that if they don't respond to the calls for dinner that they should have their hearing checked - but rarely follow up on this. At one time hearing tests were conducted routinely in Canadian schools but this is no longer the case.
Increasingly studies are determining that a contributing factor in many behaviour and academic related problems is hearing loss. Often undiagnosed hearing losses lead to misdiagnosis of learning disabilities or behavioural issues (such as ADHD). When at school does your child become tired and restless, daydream, or depend on visual clues in noisy environments? These may be signals that your child has a mild to moderate hearing loss.
While a child may function normally at home it is important to understand that background noise has a greater impact on the understanding of someone with some degree of a hearing loss. The classroom is one of the most difficult listening environments due to room acoustics and background noise. Similar to your eyes becoming tired if you have a minor vision loss, similar fatigue occurs with hearing loss. In a classroom environment filled with background noise a student may find it difficult to remain focused throughout the day, and may quickly lose attention. Children with undiagnosed and unaided hearing loss have also been found to represent a disproportionate share of behavioural problems in classrooms.