What is glue ear?
‘Glue ear’ is a condition which arises when a young child’s inner ear become blocked through colds, ‘flu or ear infections. It is also known as ‘conductive hearing loss’. ‘Glue ear’ is the main cause of acquired dyslexia, as a child is not able to hear spoken speech clearly enough to distinguish the separate sounds which make up each word. It is essential at an early age for the brain to be able to hear the separate parts of each word and to learn to recognize these sounds. If this does not happen, then lifelong difficulties with phonemic awareness will result, as well as possible delayed language development and weaker short-term memory retrieval.
