Anne-Marie Marley - Hearing Impairments

I am Anne-Marie Marley, a specialist speech and language therapist working with children in Lincolnshire who have hearing impairments.

There are different types and degrees of hearing impairment, aetiologies and available hearing technology, including cochlear implants and hearing aids.

Speech and language therapists work with children, their families and other professionals to support the development of a child’s communication.

My role is very diverse and I enjoy working in a family-centred way in establishing parental/carer aspirations for the child alongside children’s individual needs.

I work with children who are working on their developing listening and spoken language skills, those who are using sign and those who are using a combination of methods as a total communication approach to interact with others.

Key to my role is differential diagnosis (where two or more conditions  could be affecting a person) and ensuring families have access to the right support at the right time as, just as hearing children, children who are deaf can have a range of needs over and above their hearing loss. This could include a developmental language disorder, disordered speech sound development or social communication difficulties.

I work with other professionals from a range of other disciplines, including teachers of the deaf and audiologists. Part of my role also involves liaising with regional cochlear implant centres.

I very feel privileged to be part of a family’s individual journey to support their child’s communication skills and to be able to work within a supportive trust environment.

More information about children and hearing loss is available from https://www.ndcs.org.uk.