Children need to hear speech clearly to develop their own talking and listening skills. Between the ages of 2 and 4 years, children are moving from phrases to full sentences, and refining the meaning and use of words.
Tests for this age group are based on games around a child’s preference for toys and dialogue. As well as measuring your child’s hearing levels in each ear, we use games that provide information about his or her understanding of words and we assess speech clarity and styles of communication.
This is a crucial time for developing age-appropriate speech and language skills. We assess how clearly your child can hear speech through their hearing aids, so that family and hearing support teams can help to enhance the child’s acoustic input before he or she starts school.
We provide a full report of our results, which can be shared with NHS audiology services, doctors and other members of your hearing support team.
Many families find it helpful to chart their child’s progress. Here is a checklist of speech milestones between 24 months and 2 years from Texas Early Hearing Detection and Intervention. You may also want to take a look at our leaflet Your Child and Hearing Aids, by Karen L Anderson and Jane Madell.
