Hearing Status of the Blind School Boys

Objective: A survey on hearing state of blind schoolboys in Tehran. Method and Material: This cross-sectional descriptive survey was conducted on 640 ears of 320 blind schoolboys of 5-23 years old as a hearing screening in Tehran blind schools, 2000-01. Results: 20.94% was hearing-impaired of whom 13.75% had bilateral and 7.19% had unilateral hearing loss. 15.16% of students suffered from sensory-neural hearing loss (SNHL), 1.56% from conductive hearing loss (CHL) and 0.62% from mixed hearing loss (MHL), that is, SNHL occurred 10 times more than CHL. Hearing loss was often mild and moderate, and audiogram configuration was primarily high tone loss (HTL). On the whole, 8.13% of students needed medical treatment, 15.13% needed audiological rehabilitation and 3.44% of them were in need of both medical and rehabilitation Intervention. General information about hearing problem was very low among students, their parents and teachers, which was 26.87%, 20.9% and 22.39%, respectively. There is significant relation between SNHL and parents' relationship. Conclusion: The prevalence of hearing loss in blinds is higher than in normal-visions. It is often sensorineural. So, it is important to identify these children through hearing screening (Using more high frequencies) and to conduct medical as well as rehabilitative intervention.