By Petulia Clarke, Staff ReporterTHE PREVALENCE of mild hearing impairment is high among Jamaican children, according to results from a recent survey conducted by the Child Health Unit of the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), Mona.
The survey, "Hearing screening in Jamaican school-aged children", found that among 291 four-to-nine-year-old children who were screened, 16.2 per cent had mild hearing impairment in phase one tests done at the UHWI, and 35 per cent in phase two tests done in communities between 1998 and 2000.
The overall conclusion was that parental perception was not helpful in identifying those children, especially when the hearing loss was in one ear. A majority of the children affected were also from the lower socio-economic group.
Dr. Nicholas Dorah, one of the authors of the survey, explained last week that the survey was conducted to identify pre-school-aged children on a national level who had a hearing impairment, determine if care-givers could accurately and adequately identify those children, examine whether there was an association with a particular gender or socio-economic status, and generate much needed epidemiological data to determine if the Ministry of Health needed to mandate the implementation of universal screening.
According to research, hearing is essential for the development of language and severe hearing loss is one of the most common major abnormalities at birth, and, if undetected, will impede speech, language and cognitive development, said Dr. Dorah.
For the survey, school-aged children were selected and the study conducted in two phases. St. Elizabeth, St. Catherine, Clarendon, St. Mary, Manchester, St. James and St. Elizabeth were selected to represent an average of the island population in terms of socio-economic status and living conditions.
The study did not seek to identify the cause of the hearing impairment. If identified, however, parents or guardians were instructed to have a more complete audiological examination performed by the Jamaica Association for the Deaf.
Data revealed that in phase one, a total of 148 children were tested and a total of 143 for phase two. The screening audiogram identified 24 children in phase one as test failures, that is, failure to respond to a 25 decibel tone, and 50 children during phase two. Their cases revealed a hearing impairment prevalence of 16.2 per cent for phase one and 35 per cent for phase two. Of the 50 test failures in phase two, 47 had mild hearing impairment in one or both ears.
Of the 24 children in phase two who had hearing impairment only six of the parents thought the child had some hearing problem. Parents of 18 of those children did not believe there was a problem with the children's hearing, while six parents who thought their children had a hearing problem, on screening, had normal hearing.
In phase two, only two parents thought their children had a problem and in both cases those children had mild hearing loss in both ears. The parents of the two who had moderate and the two who had severe hearing loss were not aware that their children had problems. Those children, however, only had hearing loss in one ear.
The researchers said that with proper hearing screening programmes in place it was possible to identify and treat a large proportion of affected children.
The high prevalence of hearing impairment identified the need for nationwide hearing screening in Jamaican children, Dr. Dorah said. Mild hearing loss may warrant treating any ear infections present, re-testing, placement of the child's desk in the front of the classroom, speech therapy and wearing hearing aids in school.
The research will become part of the Faculty of Medical Sciences' research conference and workshop to be held in the next two weeks on the Mona campus of the UWI.
