Every kid wants to fit in with their peers. Unfortunately, sometimes children with hearing loss have a hard time doing so. This is because kids who can’t hear well have a harder time perceiving others’ emotions, compromising their communication skills on Memorial Park Playground in Woodland Hills. The good news is hearing aids can help with this. We review what one study shows about this topic below.
About the Study
The study, entitled “Hearing status Affects Children’s Emotion Understanding in Dynamic Social Situations: An Eye-Tracking Study,” was published in the journal Ear and Hearing in 2021.
Study Objective
The aim of the study was to understand the effect of early-onset hearing loss on children’s emotional understanding. The researchers uncovered this by examining how children encode and interpret nonverbal emotional cues in dynamic social situations.
Study Methodology
For the study, researchers fit children who have hearing loss with Oticon hearing aids that offer MoreSound IntelligenceTM. They tested the children’s voice emotion recognition for anger, happiness, sadness and fear.
Study Results
The researchers found that the children who wore hearing aids were able to accurately recognize the emotional nuances of spoken language, without using facial expressions. In fact, the children had a similar performance as their age-matched peers who have normal hearing. Those with hearing loss had a 94% recognition level compared to 98% for those without.
According to the study authors, “The findings suggest that children with limited auditory access to the social environment tend to collect visually observable information to compensate for ambiguous emotional cues in social situations. These children may have developed this strategy to support their daily communication. Yet, to fully benefit from such a strategy, these children may need extra support for gaining better social-emotional knowledge.”
What This Means for Your Child
What this study shows is that hearing aids can help your child be more attuned to the emotions of others, enabling them to respond more empathetically. This can improve their relationships with their peers and help them build friendships that will last for years to come.
For more information about hearing aids for children or to schedule an appointment with a pediatric audiologist, call Georgia Hearing Center at ENT of Athens today.