Abstract
The goal of this study was to find the actual condition of hearing impairment in a population of Down's syndrome children. Play audiometry with the peep show test and/or electrophysiological audiometry by auditory brainstem response (ABR) were carried out on 55 Down's syndrome subjects aged from 10 months to 15 years. The results obtained were as follows: (1) Thirty five percent of the subjects were suspected of having hearing impairment in both ears and 37 percent of the ears tested were suspected of having hearing impairment. (2) Of those ears suspected of having hearing impairment, 45 percent had a mild hearing loss, 32 percent had a moderate loss and 23 percent had a severe loss. But none of the subjects had bilateral severe loss. (3) The large number of subjects showed there was a discrepancy of hearing loss between both ears. Seventeen percent of the subjects indicated a discrepancy of more than 40dB. (4) The audiometric study showed a mostly flat loss configuration. A gradual high tone loss was found in only one case and a marked high tone loss was not found at all. (5) The most significant type of hearing impairment was of the conductive type (55% of 11 ears).(6) Fourteen of 19 subjects (74%) suspected of having hearing impairment had never been regarded with suspicion before this audiometric test.
