Vision & Hearing Disorders

The educational definition classifies pupils with visual impairments based on the degree to which they use vision and / or auditory / tactile means of learning. A student with total blindness does not receive useful information through the sense of vision and must use touch, hearing and other non-visual senses to learn.

A child who is functionally blind has such a limited vision that he learns primarily through the senses of hearing and touch; however, he can use his residual vision to supplement the information he receives from the other senses.

A child with partial vision uses vision as the primary means of learning.

The age of visual disturbance affects the child’s educational and emotional needs

Characteristics

Children with severe visual disturbances do not benefit from the symptomatic learning that viewers achieve in their daily experiences and interactions with the environment. Visual disturbances often lead to lag or deficits in motor growth. Some pupils with visual impairments experience social isolation and difficulties in social interactions due to limited common experiences with peers seeing and unable to understand and use eye contact, facial expressions and gestures during discussions and / or stereotypical behaviors.

Hearing disturbances create obstacles to children’s communication with their environment and the development of their speech. Immediate consequence is mental disorders and difficulty in the child’s mental development.

The earlier the loss of hearing occurs in a child’s life, the more serious the impact on his or her development. Similarly, the sooner the problem is detected and its investigation begins, the less serious will be its final impact.

How can a parent be suspected that his child does not hear well? The suspected symptoms are as follows:

• They have difficulty doing something that they are giving him because he does not seem to understand what they are asking him to do.
• They stay behind the classes at school
• They understand the questions they are asked and eithert they do not answer or they answer inappropriately
• They ask us to repeat what we told them. Or they stares other people in the face as they speak, trying to understand what they are saying.
• Their speech presents differences (worse) than other children of the same age.
• Difficult to pronounce simple words
• Can not repeat a phrase
• There is a delay in language development
• They do not listen well on the phone
• They speak loud when it is not necessary
• They complain of chronic ear pain.