Unilateral and mild bilateral hearing loss in children: past and current perspectives

Abstract

Since the early 1980s, audiologists have become increasingly aware of the potential effect of even mild degrees of hearing loss on the psychoeducational and psychosocial outcomes of children. This review describes some of the key research findings during the past several decades that have led us to our current thinking about unilateral and mild bilateral hearing loss in children. The first section addresses unilateral hearing loss. This is followed by a review of the literature on mild bilateral hearing loss. Specifically, the issues addressed include the significance of permanent mild degrees of hearing loss on children's psychoeducational and psychosocial development and the speech, language, and auditory characteristics of children with mild degrees of hearing loss. Finally, some recommendations regarding the direction of future research are offered. This review is followed by 2 articles summarizing the proceedings of a 2005 workshop convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program, and the Marion Downs Hearing Center to address concerns about the underidentification of-- and professionals' apparent lack of awareness of-- permanent unilateral and minimal to mild hearing loss in children.

Figure 1.

Mean sound-field composite scores in percentage correct on the Nonsense Syllable Test (Levitt and Resnick) across several primary-to-secondary ratios (ie, signal-to-noise ratio) for children with UHL (n = 25) and children with normal hearing (n = 25). Reprinted with permission from Bess and colleagues (1986).

Figure 2.

School retention rates for children with minimal sensorineural hearing loss (MSHL) at each grade level (3, 6, 9). School-district norm retention rates are included for comparison. Asterisks denote the grades in which significance (P < .05) was achieved between groups. Reprinted with permission from Bess and colleagues (1998).