The Causes of Deafness in Children

Abstract

The author studied case history and causes of deafness of 535 children with hearing loss under 15 years of age who consulted Visual and Auditory Research Institute of Fukuoka Medical Association during one year and six months from 1970 to 1972. The frequency of hereditary deafness was 13.7%, prenatal deafness 13.7%, paranatal deafness 29.9%, postnatal deafness 4.6% and unknown causes was 38.1%.
The author compared these results with those in 459 hard of hearing children under 10 years of age who consulted otolaryngological clinic of Kyushu University during five years from 1957 to 1961. There was no great difference between the frequencies of hereditary deafness in both studies, but prenatal and paranatal deafness was much more and postnatal deafness was much less in the author's study than that in their study. The frequency of prenatal and paranatal disturbances in hard of hearing children was compared with those in normal children of three years of age. The frequencies of maternal rubella infection in pregnancy, threatend abortion, asphyxia, premature baby and sever jaundice in hard of hearing children were higher than that in the normal children.