Helping at home

Whilst waiting for your child's glue ear to clear up, there are lots of things you can do to help your child listen and concentrate. This can help with their behaviour and reduce frustration for both you and your child.

• Reducing background noise: Turn off the TV or radio if you are playing with or talking to your child.  Background noise can make it difficult for your child to hear conversations.
   
• Get their attention:  Before speaking to your child or giving them instructions, make sure you get their attention first.  This lets them know that you are trying to talk to them.
   
• Face them when talking:  Ensure that your child can see your face when talking to them so they can use lipreading cues to help them understand what you are saying.
   
• Make lipreading easy: Lip-reading is a technique of understanding speech by carefully watching movements of the face, lips and tongue, when sound levels are low or missing. Whilst mostly used by people with reduced hearing, people with normal hearing also lipread subconsciously (children as young as 19 months old have been shown to lip-read).  Speak clearly and naturally at a normal pace to help your child to use lipreading cues.
   
• Give brief, clear instructions: Use short instructions rather than long sentences. This will make sure that your child understands the main points.
   
• Check your child's response to make sure that they have understood you correctly
   
• Speak to your child's teacher:  let your child's teacher know about their glue ear so they can take appropriate action in the classroom.