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Communication

  1. Suggestions for Communicating with Your Child
  2. Practical Communication Tips
  3. Communication Choices

Suggestions for Communicating with Your Child

  • Help your child to make it a habit to watch the speaker even if listening is not difficult.
  • Teach your child not to interrupt the speaker before he/she finishes a sentence. Your child may not understand the beginning, but may catch the end.
  • Instruct your child to let the speaker know when he/she is aware something that was said was missed, and to ask for it to be repeated if he/she did not understand.
  • Help your child to learn to summarize what he/she did hear so that the communication partner knows what to fill in.
  • If your child does not appear to understand what is being said, rephrase the statement rather than simply repeating the misunderstood words. Present the topic of conversation. For example, "We are talking about [blank]."
  • Help your child with hearing loss know that they may feel more fatigue after classes since they must work so much harder to keep up with the information presented.
  • Encourage your child to keep his/her sense of humor.
  • Speak clearly and slowly at a distance of between 3 and 6 feet, or use an FM system.
  • Stand in clear light facing your child for greater visibility of lip movements, facial expressions and gestures. Do not speak to your child unless you are visible to him or her.
  • Remember the rule, "If he/she can't see me, then he/she can't hear me."

Practical Communication Tips

  • Reduce or move away from background noise. Help to manipulate the environment to allow communication in as noise-free an atmosphere as possible. If your child wears hearing instruments with directional microphones, try to position background noise to be behind your child. He or she should face whatever or whomever they are listening to.
  • Do not over-articulate. Exaggerating your mouth movement distorts the sounds of speech and the speaker's face, making the use of visual clues more difficult.
  • Captioning can help when watching television or a film.

Courtesy of Phonak

Communication Choices

  • American Sign language
  • Cued speech
  • Total communication
  • Auditory Verbal Communication
  • Oral Communication

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Program Partners