Speech and Language Therapist Mürüde Gingi attended the conference on “Language Development of Children with Hearing Loss” organised by the European University of Lefke (EUL) Vocational School of Health Services.

In the conference, Gingi, who basically discussed the relationship between hearing and speech, said, “Speech and language therapy is one of the indispensable fields in hearing loss, as in other fields, since the child who has just started to hear needs more intensive attention and therapy because the child does not know how to listen and the correct production of sounds, the earlier the process is started, the more beautiful and efficient the process progresses.” Gingi started her speech therapy by defining the concepts of communication, language and speech and talked about the difference between them and explained the normal language development stages expected in children.   In the conference, Gingi examined the concept of hearing within the framework of language and speech and talked about the developmental stages of hearing behaviour, and mentioned that these developmental stages are negatively affected in children with hearing loss depending on the degree of hearing loss and the age of diagnosis.

Gingi mentioned the critical importance of early diagnosis by mentioning what hearing loss is, what the risk factors are, and finally, what should be done to contribute to the language development of children with hearing loss, as well as the basic principles of learning to listen and the important strategies that should be known in order to improve listening skills.