In order to avoid the confusion in terminology, the hearing impairment or defect is divided into three namely the “hard of hearing”, “deafened”, “deaf”
Johnson, 1967: 408. 1. Hard of hearing slight-mild: one who has sufficient hearing to learn to
produce and to understand speech and language naturally by ear. 2. Deafened moderate-moderate severe: one who has developed an
awareness of speech and language naturally by ear but who no longer has sufficient hearing to enable him adequately to hear his own speech
or that of others with or without a hearing aid. 3. Deaf severe-profound: one who at the time of life when speech and
language usually develop did not have sufficient hearing to make its natural acquisition possible.
d. The Effects of Hearing-Speech Defect on Understanding Language and
Speech
Hearing and language development have close relationship and becomes a great problem for hearing-speech defective students. Hearing-speech defective
people have problems in dealing with the use of language. Language structure used by hearing-speech defective people is different from the normal ones. Bowd
1990:91 said that children with impaired hearing are handicapped in regard to speech development because they cannot properly hear themselves vocalize, and
thus receive inadequate feedback. Speech defect usually characterized by nasal
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voice, is not clear so that you cannot understand other people. This is because the occurrence of articulation errors and the effort to change the speech patterns
compensatory pattern. Hearing defect is a cause of speech defect, because deaf hearing loss is the condition that cannot deliver stimulation to the central
auditory perception in the brain. In addition, he said that there are two important things that characterize
barriers hearing-speech defective students in language aspects. First, the consequences due to hearing-speech defective lead to difficulty in accepting all
kinds of sound stimuli from the surrounding. Second, due to limitations in receiving sound stimulation, they will have difficulty in producing sounds. Both
conditions directly affect the development of language and speech. Hallahan, Kauffman Pullen 2009:348 explain the effects of hearing
impairment on language development as follows: 1. Slight: In quiet environments, the individual has no difficulty
recognizing speech, but in noisy environments, faint speech is difficult to understand.
2. Mild: In quiet conversational environments in which the topic is known and vocabulary is limited, the individual has no difficulty in
communicating. Faint or distant speech is difficult to hear even if the environment is quiet. Classroom discussions are challenging to follow.
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3. Moderate: The individual can hear conversational speech only at a close distance. Group activities, such as classroom discussions, present a
communicative challenge. 4. Moderate-Severe: The individual can hear only loud, clear
conversational speech and has much difficulty in group situations. Often, the individual’s speech is noticeably impaired though intelligible.
5. Severe: The individual cannot hear conversational speech unless it is loud and even then, cannot recognize many of the words. Environmental
sounds can be detected, though not always identified. The individual’s speech is not altogether intelligible.
6. Profound: The individual may hear loud sounds but cannot hear conversational speech at all. Vision is the primary modality for
communication. The individual’s own speech, if developed at all, is not easy to understand.
e. Examples of Possible Hearing-Speech Difficulties
