Causes of hearing impairment

The causes of hearing disorders can be very diverse and occur at different ages, as a complication after illness, so be congenital (hereditary).

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Causes of hearing impairment in children

At an early age, hearing can be disrupted in the case of pregnancy with a particularly high risk of fetal malformations, infections, taking certain medications, alcoholic beverages, and narcotic substances. Less common causes are meningitis, transmitted at an early age, hereditary pathologies.

Factors that can cause a hearing pathology:

• early birth, low birth weight (less than 1500 grams);
• intrauterine hypoxia;
• the use of drugs that affect the auditory nerve;
• injuries received by the child at birth.

In infancy, hearing pathologies develop with:

• bacterial meningitis;
• postponed measles, parotitis;
• transferred chemotherapy;
• chronic inflammation of the ear, auditory nerve;
• arthrogryposis, Mobius syndrome.

A high degree of hearing loss is noted when:

• Malformation of the middle ear;
• Cerebral motor disorders;
• Stop speech development;
• Changes in behavior - the child shows aggression, makes noise, does not communicate.

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Causes of visual and hearing impairment

The causes of visual and hearing impairment, both in adults and children, may be due to congenital and acquired pathologies. The causes of hearing loss are divided into several categories. The first category includes:

1. Hereditary pathologies of the structure of the hearing analyzer. This is almost half of all recorded cases of hearing loss at an early age.
2. External and internal causes. Typically, for such reasons include harmful effects on the fetus during pregnancy - transferred rubella, influenza, parotitis, the intake of toxic antibiotics, Rh-conflict between the fetus and the mother. Also, the abuse of alcohol, drugs, work associated with high noise threshold, dustiness, etc. (especially in the first trimester of pregnancy) entail the pathology of hearing in the fetus.
3. The development of hearing impairments in a healthy person can develop in several ways.

• Because of a transmitted infection of the inner ear and auditory nerve. Especially often, hearing loss is observed after meningitis, tuberculous meningitis, scarlet fever.
• As a result of taking antibiotics ototoxic action (kanamycin, streptomycin, neomycin, etc.).
• Operations on the middle ear, traumas that cause the rupture of auditory ossicles, vegetation of the nasopharyngeal tonsil.

Vision is also congenital and acquired. Visual impairment includes any discrepancy between basic visual functions - visual acuity, color vision, changes in the field of vision, the nature of vision, oculomotor functions. In turn, the reason for the deterioration in visual acuity lies in the violation of the refractive function, there are three such pathologies:

• Nearsightedness (the image is fixed in front of the retina)
• Farsightedness (the image is fixed behind the retina)
• Astigmatism (refraction of rays occurs in several different meridians).

Violation of the oculomotor function - strabismus and nystagmus, occur with paralysis of the eye muscles or in tumors, infections, intoxication, bleeding. Most often, strabismus in children develops after the infection or after the fright. Nystagmus (high-frequency oscillation of the pupil) is a congenital genetic abnormality that forms during the prenatal period, in the birth and post-natal period (with the resulting birth trauma).

Amblyopia - dysfunction of the visual field. It occurs with various forms of strabismus, congenital anomalies of refraction, tumors, cataracts, hysteria, etc.

Violation of color perception of an innate character can be complete or partial (some color pairs are not perceived and a person sees objects in red or bluish-green colors). If the congenital pathology is poorly perceived red-green colors, then acquired - red, green, blue.

The causes of visual and hearing impairment should be established as soon as possible, even congenital pathologies can be corrected and stabilized early on in the early detection period. Acquired pathologies with proper treatment can also be stabilized, completely or partially eliminating the cause.

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The causes of persistent hearing impairment

The causes of persistent hearing impairment are classified as congenital and acquired. Congenital pathologies, such as atresia of the auditory canal (infection), atrophy of the auditory nerve are rare. The growth of the auditory canal is found in combination with other defects of the auricle, as its underdevelopment and narrowing of the Eustachian tube. In such a situation, any inflammatory process of the ear leads to a narrowing of the ear canal and a complete or partial loss of hearing. Only full penetration of the ear canal leads to a complete and persistent hearing loss.

Acquired hearing impairment develops for various reasons. Severe persistent hearing loss occurs usually with damage to the auditory nerve, defects in the inner ear. The main causes of hearing loss are:

• Persistent complications after acute inflammatory processes in the inner ear (otitis media).
• Diseases of the nasopharyngeal cavity and nose.
• Infections - persistent hearing impairment and damage to the auditory nerve as a consequence of meningitis, influenza, mumps; inflammation of the middle ear, labyrinthitis and otitis media as a complication after measles, scarlet fever (the auditory receptors are damaged and die).
• Tumor diseases.

The causes of persistent hearing impairment with timely diagnosis are completely eliminated or partially corrected, which guarantees the restoration of hearing. Based on the list of causes of acquired persistent hearing impairment, it is possible to conduct timely complex treatment and prevention of ENT diseases.

Causes of a phonemic hearing disorder

The reasons for the violation of the phonemic hearing are functional and mechanical. Phonemic hearing is the ability to perceive and synthesize speech, that is, to understand speech phonemes. The mechanical impairment is caused by underdevelopment or other problems of the musculoskeletal system. This category includes defects and shortening of the sublingual ligament, low mobility of the tongue, anomalies in the development of the tongue (when it is narrowed or too small), a small tonus of lingual muscles, anomalies of the jaw:

• confirmation of dismissal;
• confirmation of prognosis;
• confirmation of direct bite;
• confirmation of an open lateral occlusion;
• confirmation of the wrong structure of the teeth, defects in the palate (high palatine arch, low palatal arch, flattening of the palate, thickening of the lip and jaw drop, shortened upper jaw).

Functional reasons are noted when:

• incorrect speech education within the family;
• imitation of a child with a defective speech;
• multilingualism in the family;
• the duty of sucking pacifiers, when sucking a thumb, which leads to the wrong tone and immobility of the apparatus of articulation (tongue, lower jaw).

The reasons for the violation of phonemic hearing with timely differentiation and properly rendered help do not lead to permanent irreversible disturbances in speech perception. To combat the problems of perception and synthesis of speech phonemes in a child, you can independently follow the recommendations of a doctor or by contacting a speech therapist.

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