Behavioral Screening Tests to Detect Hearing Loss in School Aged Children: A Review (original) (raw)

International Journal Of Community Health And Medical Research

Hearing impairment, if not identified early in life can lead to affected social, emotional, behavioural and cognitive spheres of any child. 1 The prevalence of hearing loss in school going children ranges from 5.7 % (NSSO, 1991) to as high as 12 %. 2 Though rural population has been found to be more affected as compared to urban, the incidence and prevalence of both are alarming. Identifying hearing loss as early as possible is important for better intervention. 3 This article is aimed to review various behavioural hearing screening tests advocated to be efficient in detection of hearing loss. Screening with pure tones Many researchers suggested pure tones as a screening tool. Some used it for group screening programme 4, 5 and few for individual screening. 2, 6, 7, 8 Group Hearing Tests Group hearing tests were developed for mass screening purpose especially among school-going children. These tests were preferred due to lesser time consumption. 4, 9 Pulse Tone Group Test Developed by Reger and Newby 4 , the test started at 40 dB and decreased in 10 and 5 dB steps. Each frequency was tested in this descending method to determine the threshold. 40 children could be tested at a time with this test. The children were required to respond by marking the appropriate number of tones heard by them at each frequency. Strenget al. 10 opined that though this test could be successfully used to screen adult or college going I Review Hearing impairment, if not identified early in life can lead to affected social, emotional, behavioural and cognitive spheres of any child. Alarming incidence and prevalence of hearing impairment among young school aged children have been reported. This article reviews various behavioural screening tests to detect presence of hearing loss. Hearing screening tests have been designed using pure tones, speech stimulus, questionnaires, checklists etc. All of these procedures were administered either individualized or in groups. Screening with pure tones has been preferred over those which incorporated speech stimuli. This choice was because the latter was flawed by troublesome maintenance and difficult response patterns. Individualized screening designs were found to be easier and more comprehensive by many authors. With the advent of newer technologies many objective tests have been introduced which are more competent in identifying hearing loss. Since many parts of the country is still lacking adequate infrastructure and experienced audiologists, as of date, it is worth realizing the importance of behavioural screening hearing tests.