Treatment usually consists of:
- Direct training, i.e., training of auditory working memory and other memory function.
- Improving the environmental conditions for speech understanding at school and at home.
- Compensatory strategies
- Possible changes in the school teaching style (special didactic measures).
- Improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio through appropriate acoustic amplification (if necessary).
General measures
- Skills such as general auditory attention – listening – pitch discrimination and rhythm hearing can be trained, for example, by means of music. Often, attendance at a music school has proven effective, either in the form of early musical education by learning to play an instrument or also through singing lessons (see below “Complementary treatment methods”).
- Also, the formerly common numerous finger games promote very well the interaction of hearing and movement, which is very important later for writing by ear, as in dictation.
- Television and computer games, on the other hand, are not suitable for the auditory perception promotion and should be limited to child-friendly programs if possible.
- In the classroom, teachers should consider the following aspects, as they can have a positive effect on auditory perception:
- Changing the seating position – children should sit further forward in the classroom to be better engaged.
- Care should be taken to ensure good acoustics in the classroom.
- The child should always be addressed directly.
- When speaking, another activity should not be performed at the same time.
- During pregnancy, alcohol is absolutely prohibited!
- Give the child more positive attention, physical closeness and attention
Conventional non-surgical therapy methods
- Training with a specially trained therapist – speech therapist or occupational therapist – contributes to the training and education of auditory skills, thus positively affecting the child’s development.
- In recent times, very good results have been made with hearing aid fitting, even if the child’s hearing is not or not significantly impaired. The hearing aid can be programmed to selectively amplify the useful sound in the direction of the child’s gaze, but not the interfering sound.
Regular check-ups
- Regular medical checkups
Psychotherapy
- If necessary, psychotherapy (including stress management).
- Detailed information on psychosomatic medicine (including stress management) you will receive from us.
Complementary treatment methods
- Music training – intended to promote phonological awareness, phoneme segmentation, and phonological working memory (low evidence).
