Compared with children who are typically developing, children with unilateral hearing loss are more likely to exhibit:

The likelihood that children with unilateral hearing loss experience difficulty localizing sounds and discriminating speech with background noise is well-documented in research. This stems from the fact that having only one functioning ear can impede a child's ability to accurately determine the direction of sounds, as well as make it more challenging to pick out speech from background noise.

Typically developing children are able to utilize binaural hearing — the ability to hear with both ears — to effectively locate sounds and clarify speech, especially in complex auditory environments. In contrast, children with unilateral hearing loss lose this advantage, leading to difficulties in understanding conversations in settings where multiple sounds are present.

The other options, although they may present challenges for some children with hearing loss, do not capture the unique difficulties associated specifically with unilateral hearing loss and the auditory processing challenges that result from it as accurately as the correct choice does.