A recent WebMD article entitled "1-sided hearing loss lowers language skills" caught my attention because - well - it seemed like such a random topic at first. According to this article, new research shows that loss of hearing in one year at an early age may have an effect on a child's ability to grasp certain language skills and concepts. Judith C. E. Lieu, M.D. of Washington University claims that "on average, children with hearing loss in one ear have poorer oral language scores than children with hearing in both ears."
The reasons behind possible correlation between this variable, hearing loss in one ear, and outcome, poorer language skills, are unclear. Lieu suggests that children with hearing loss in one ear may ignore group work activity because the noise and sound overwhelm them. To (very unscientifically) test this hypothesis, I plugged my left ear to see if the sound I heard in a group setting was any different when I didn't have a finger stuck in one of my ears.
The differences, I observed, were minimal. However, that brief test certainly does not discount Lieu's evidence in any way. Instead, I propose an expansion of Lieu's experiment. Lieu should provide each child with unilateral hearing loss with a hearing aid that amplifies sound so that they too can hear with two ears. The students' language performance should then be re-recorded in juxtaposition with children with full hearing capacity. Or an entirely separate experiment could be performed, with one group of children with hearing in both ears, one group with children with unilateral hearing loss and no hearing aid, and another group with children with unilateral hearing loss and a hearing aid. Of course this brings up certain ethical issues of withholding a potentially life-changing device to an entire experimental group of children though ...
In any case, the original article can be found here: http://children.webmd.com/news/20100510/1-sided-hearing-loss-lowers-language-skills
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