Acupuncture: Its Effect on the Speech and Language of Hearing-Impaired Children and Teenagers

Journal/Book: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Akupunktur. 1991; 34/03: 54-57.

Abstract: Questionnaires completed before and during regular weekly acupuncture and/or laser acupunctur treatments were used to judge the effect of acupuncture on prelingual severe-to-profoundly hearing-impaired children and teenagers. The questionnaires were filled in by the parents, teachers and by the older subjects themselves. 81% demonstrated positive reactions to the acupuncture therapy. There were highly significant levels of agreement between the parent, teacher and patient observations. The effects observed were: 1. a faster and more consistent response to environmental sounds, 2. better and especially more rapid understanding (decoding) of speech, 3. an improvement of their speech - more precise articulation, 4. the younger children speak more, their sentence structures improve. No significant difference was found between the effects of acupuncture, laser acupuncture or a combination of both. Acupuncture apppears to have an effect on the cortical and subcortical language processing and production mechanisms. Mechanisms which are still far from understood. It is known that acupuncture may have neurophysiological, neurochemical and circulatory effects. Thus we assume that the transmission mode required for language processing and production may be optimized by the stimulation of the appropriate acupuncture points. Based on our clinical observations, we advise that regular acupuncture therapy be carried out for several years, especially during the vital years of language development, and, if possible throughout the school years.

Keyword(s): Akupunktur, Hörbehinderung, Sprache, Sprechen.

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