What is the impact of hearing impairment on the psychological development of deaf children

  Test and evaluation results showed that these deaf children had significantly lower IQ and lagged behind in psychological and behavioral development compared to children with normal hearing. This suggests that children with congenital or early-onset hearing loss do not differ significantly from normal children in terms of physical and physiological development, gross and fine motor development. However, the loss of speech due to hearing impairment makes their intellectual, cognitive, interpersonal, socialization and social adaptation, and even personality and emotional development severely hampered.  Modern psychological research shows that human speech is acquired through imitation, learning and reinforcement, based on innate qualities. The critical period for humans to learn speech is generally from 1 to 12 years old, with 1 to 4 years old being the most critical. If a person’s hearing is impaired during the critical period of speech acquisition and formation, the stimulation of speech information is reduced or even completely absent, the speech function of the brain will be difficult to form, establish and develop, and the speech ability will be lost. This is the reason why “nine out of ten deaf people are dumb”.  The most basic mental condition that we must have to do anything, namely the ability to understand things and use knowledge to solve problems, is usually called intelligence. Among the various factors that make up intelligence, the ability to think is the backbone and core of intelligence. Language and speech are the tools of human thinking, and the analysis, comparison, judgment, and reasoning in thinking activities are carried out by using language and speech as tools. The deficits and loss of speech and language function in deaf children have a significant impact on their intellectual development, and as a result, deaf children have a significantly lower IQ than normal children in intelligence assessments.  An important concept in social psychology is socialization. Socialization refers to the process of growth and development of an individual from a natural person to a social person. In other words, socialization is the process by which an individual interacts with other people, receives social influences, learns and masters social roles and behavioral norms, and develops a personality, social psychology, behavioral style and life skills that are adapted to the social environment.  Human speech and intelligence are an important condition for socialization, which begins with the mastery of language, and only by mastering language can one fully accept the corresponding social customs and attitudes and shape one’s personality. If speech and intelligence are not fully functional, it is difficult for individual socialization to be completed successfully, and it will lead to difficulties in social adaptation due to insufficient socialization.  Hearing impairment can not only cause serious obstacles to the speech, intellectual development and social adaptation of deaf children, but also have different degrees of negative impact on their personality and emotional and affective establishment and development. Some data show that deaf children are more likely to have personality and emotional problems such as autism, low self-esteem, stubbornness, irritability and moodiness than normal children.  Therefore, it has become an urgent need for individuals, families and society to raise awareness of the many psychological effects of deafness on children, to prevent and reduce the occurrence of deafness, to provide early treatment (rescue) for hearing impairment in deaf children, and to strengthen special education and rehabilitation training for the speech function of deaf children. The “Angel Echo – Poor Deaf Children Relief Action” launched by the Chinese Red Cross Society has undoubtedly brought a blessing to these children who live in a silent world, and is a good deed for the society.