The Importance of Back-to-School Screenings
As the summer comes to an end and the school year quickly approaches, parents are checking off last minute necessities on their child's back-to-school list. But, many parents may overlook some of the most important tools for their child to succeed - their ears, eyes and language ability.
Hearing Screenings
Research shows that one in 300 children in the United States are born with permanent hearing loss, and by the time children reach school age, it’s more like 12 out of 300, according the American Medical Association. Any type of hearing loss, permanent or temporary, can also affect a child’s speech, language, and social development in addition to the ability to learn. Make sure to have your child complete a routine hearing screening before they begin school this year. Even children who passed their hearing screening at birth may be at risk for developing hearing loss as they enter early childhood.
Hearing screenings are quick and painless. At the time of the screening, the physical condition of the ears will also be inspected by the audiologist, and at the conclusion of the screening, the examiner will provide either a “pass” – indicating no further action is required for your child at this time – or a “referral” with further recommendations including either a rescreen in about two weeks, or a full evaluation if a hearing problem is suspected.
Signs of hearing loss in children include:
- Difficulty understanding in noisy situations
- Struggling in school
- Attention problems
- Speech and language delays
- Frequent ear infections
- Diagnosis of other disorders, including learning disorders, speech articulation disorders, down syndrome or autism
Request a hearing screening appointment
Vision Screenings
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, children's eyes change rapidly, making vision screenings a crucial step in detecting and correcting eye issues at an early age. It is estimated that 80 percent of learning is visual. Taking simple precautions can help ensure children have healthy vision and are ready for the school year.
According to Dr. Maria Parisi, associate dean of Clinical Affairs for The Eye Institute (TEI) of Salus University, “vision screenings are important for children mostly because kids don’t know what normal vision is. If a child is having vision trouble, they may not complain about it because they don't have anything to compare it to.”
Dr. Parisi suggests children get screened once before kindergarten and if everything is normal, once every two years from then. If there is an issue suspected, the child should have a comprehensive eye exam. The most common issue found in young children is nearsightedness, difficulty seeing faw-away objects. Dr. Parisi noted that this condition is rapidly increasing in the U.S. due to high use of electronic screens with the increase in technology. Other common conditions found in children include farsightedness (difficulty seeing close up) and lazy eye. Overlooking an eye issue in a child may lead to more serious complications in the future. Back to school vision screenings at a local eye doctor’s office can catch problems in early stages to prevent more serious damage down the road.
Signs of vision issues in children include:
- Squinting
- Sitting close to the TV
- Becoming distracted in school
- Headaches
- Loss of interest in reading
Speech-Language Screenings
Speech and language are crucial skills to children’s development. To screen for speech and language impairments, speech-language pathologists may use informal methods to benchmark children against standard communication developmental norms or a published screener such as Preschool Language Scales-5 (PLS-5) Screening Test. The PLS-5 uses methods to sample a broad spectrum of speech and language skills for children ranging in age from birth through age 7 in five to 10 minutes.
Both formal and informal measures help identify those children that may need further assessment and intervention, according to Robert Serianni, MS, CCC-SLP, the clinical director of the Speech-Language Institute of Salus University. “Early identification is key to preventing children from falling behind in their communication development.”
There are a variety of speech, language and cognitive disorders, and they all present various symptoms.
Articulation disorders
- Sound substitutions, distortions or omissions; difficulty producing specific individual sound(s) correctly in words, sentences or conversation
- Difficulty with a pattern of sounds that occur in language
Voice and resonance disorders
- Difficulties with vocal pitch (frequency), volume (intensity) and/or quality (tone)
- Hoarseness, harshness, breathiness, strained voice quality
Fluency (stuttering) disorders
- Speech disorders in which the flow of speech is broken by repetitions, prolongations, or stoppages and may include unusual facial and body movements
- Rapid repetition of distorted speech sounds (cluttering)
Receptive and expressive language (reading and writing) disorders
- Difficulty with comprehension of spoken language (listening) or written language (reading)
- Troubles communicating thoughts, feeling and experiences in both verbal (talking) and written (writing) form, across five parameters:
- Phonology (rules for speech sounds in a language)
- Semantics (meaning of words used in a language)
- Syntax (order of words in a language)
- Morphology (how words are formed in a language)
- Pragmatics (use of language in social interactions)
- Nonverbal aspects of language may include struggling with making or interpreting facial expressions, body language, tones of voice and situation use/rules of communication
Cognitive disorders affecting memory, attention, reasoning, problem solving, orientation, judgment, or executive functioning
- Attention
- Memory (short-term or working memory and long-term memory)
- Reasoning
- Problem-Solving
- Orientation (person, place, time and situation)
- Insight/Judgment
- Executive Functioning (planning/sequencing, self-monitoring skills)
Social communication disorders affecting one’s ability to use and interpret language in social situations
- Disorders affecting the ability to use and interpret language in social context