My youngest ds is 6 and has a history of moderate-severe hearing loss (due to glue ear which is now resolving itself thank goodness) - his hearing loss is now mild and he wears a hearing aid and copes well.
As a result he had delayed speech when he started school. The school has done a fantastic job with him and he is making really good progress from what I can see although I think he's fairly bright and hasn't quite caught up with where he would have been without the hearing/speech issues.
He's very smiley and sociable and seems to make friends easily.
But his teacher says he's very quiet in class. I know from chatting to her that he doesn't always show them what he can do - e.g. they were doing shapes recently and I know at home he can easily name all sorts of more complicated 3d shapes, the more advanced 2d shapes etc. But he seems too shy to do this in school. Similar story with number bonds and recalling times tables etc. (loads more examples, in literacy as well)
His speech is still not always 100% clear and I think it knocks his confidence when people don't immediately understand him - I also think years of not always hearing everything that was going on have taken a toll.
He can also be a bit like this out of school with certain things - he has a new scooter and hasn't quite got the hang of it and is refusing to use it. He didn't walk until very late but when he did was running and jumping within a couple of days! So I suspect it is partly just his personality.
I just wondered if anyone had any ideas of what we could do to boost his confidence a bit more? He participates enthusiastically in loads of extra curricular stuff. I chat to him loads about what he's doing on the way to collect his siblings most days and we make plenty of time for reading and practising spellings. What else could we do?