Thirty four children with microtia and meatal atresia (unilateral 30, bilateral 4) were examined to determine their hearing ability and language development.
The 30 with unilateral abnormalities showed a conductive hearing loss of 45.0-72.5dB in the affected ear. The nonaffected ear in 21 out of the 30 children showed normal hearing (a loss of less than 20dB) and in 9 the hearing loss was more than 30dB in the normal ear.
Eight children with unilateral microtia and a hearing loss of more than 40dB had delayed language development.
The four children with bilateral microtia showed no language retardation despite a hearing loss of 40.0-76.0dB in both ears because of the early use of hearing aids.
Bone-conduction-hearing aids were more effective than air-conduction-hearing aids for children with microtia.