Imagine a busy classroom with children hearing and interpreting lots of sounds around them. PhD student, Katherine Collier, from our School of Education has looked at the academic impact on children with mild and unilateral hearing loss.
Rose Ayling-Ellis’s recent documentary, Signs for Change, has brought significant attention to the experiences of the deaf and hard of hearing community, offering a moving and honest portrayal of the challenges they may face. Her exploration further showcased the incredible strengths, resilience and determination shown by these individuals and has sparked vital conversations about how we understand and support hearing diversity in classrooms. This blog post builds on that conversation and considers the academic impact of mild and unilateral hearing loss, which can be easily overlooked but carry meaningful consequences for learning and school performance.
Mild hearing loss is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a hearing loss of 20–35dB, with unilateral hearing loss referring to hearing loss of at least 35dB in just one ear (WHO, 2021), which is often thought of as whispering volume. Both can make it hard to hear speech in noisy environments, with unilateral hearing loss additionally making it harder to locate sounds.
In a lively primary school classroom, rich with language, children are continuously interpreting sounds. From following instructions and building literacy skills, to engaging with peers, hearing ability can shape school experiences. But for children with unilateral hearing loss (UHL) or mild hearing loss (MHL), their learning experience can differ in ways that are subtle but far from insignificant. Easily overlooked, a child with these degrees of hearing loss will often appear to follow conversations, speak well and engage in classroom life. With up to 23 per cent of children experiencing mild hearing loss (Elbeltagy, 2020), how much do mild and unilateral hearing loss matter?
In my recently published review (Collier, 2025), I took a closer look at this seldom spotlighted cohort, to offer an insight into the academic risks they face. Particularly, I analysed whether an association exists between mild and unilateral hearing loss and academic achievement for primary school-age children. I identified a total of 16,269 potentially relevant records through database searching. Twelve reports, covering nine distinct studies, met the prespecified inclusion criteria and were examined. The nine identified studies were methodologically diverse, including variation on the educational outcomes assessed and the definitions and measurements of hearing loss. Therefore, the results require a cautious interpretation and highlight that more comprehensive studies exploring these population groups would be beneficial.
A clear pattern emerged. In total, 51 out of 57 reported effect sizes were negative, indicating that children with UHL and MHL often achieved lower academic scores than their typically-hearing peers. Further, 27 of the negative effect sizes were considered substantially important with an effect size exceeding 0.25; none of the six positive effect sizes reached that benchmark. The trend was also consistent across both UHL and MHL, suggesting that these degrees of hearing loss can have real-world relevance on academic scores for primary school-aged children.
I explored five areas of learning – reading, writing, maths, oral language and other academic measures – which all showed a negative association with hearing loss for the majority of measures. Notably, oral language was found to have a substantially important negative association with hearing loss for all UHL measures and the majority (67 per cent) of MHL measures. Therefore, if oracy is going to become a focus within our schools, as proposed by the Labour Party (Labour Party, 2023), it must be inclusive. That means thinking carefully about how we can support those who already face barriers to oral communication, and build an approach that works for everyone without unintentionally widening the gap.
Together, increased awareness and evidence from research can help guide us towards a more inclusive society. A greater awareness of learning barriers strengthens our ability to create inclusive learning environments that celebrate each child’s strengths and value their differences. By deepening our understanding about MHL and UHL, this review seeks to help make progress towards ensuring that even subtle educational needs are recognised. For information about supporting children with hearing loss, the National Deaf Children’s Society offers a range of helpful resources.
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