Following up on Monday's post about the differences between exposure to sound and access to sound, today's post addresses a related topic. Access to sound does not guarantee access to language.

As Monday's post described, deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people do not have the same quality of access to sound as hearing people. That we can hear a sound happening does not necessarily mean that the sound is clear or that we have understood it.

Hearing devices provide more access to sound than DHH people would have without them, but sound is not the same as language. Some DHH people have better access to sound than others.

Quality of access may be influenced by factors that are within our (or our audiologist's) control and others that are not.

Regular and consistent use of hearing devices is important if the DHH person wants to maximize access to sound, but this doesn't guarantee understanding of all information communicated in spoken language (more on this in future posts!).

Knowing how much access a DHH child has to spoken language is difficult. This is especially true for young children who have not yet developed language and cannot let adults know what they hear and understand.

As an audiologist, I can tell parents whether their young child can hear sounds happening and which sounds likely will be harder to hear. I can help parents understand how to support their child's auditory access by modifying the environment, ...

... using assistive devices like microphones, and using communication strategies. I can tell parents how many words their young child likely has understood in a quiet environment from a task where the child points to pictures.

But I cannot guarantee a spoken language outcome for any DHH child because access to sound does not necessarily mean full access to spoken language. Regular and consistent hearing device use, though beneficial for some goals, does not guarantee spoken language development.

This is why we must do everything possible to maximize holistic language access for DHH children. No professional can promise hearing outcomes or language outcomes. Every child deserves full access to at least one language: signed, spoken, or otherwise.