Schools and education
Reading, spelling, behaviour attention span, listening skill or selective listening can be symptoms of middle ear fluid or A.D.D / Attention deficit disorder. Always do a pure tone test first
CHILDREN’S PURE TONE HEARING SCREENING
(TEST EARLY & TEST OFTEN)
Most children are born with clear fluid in the middle ear and it usually clears in several days. However, even the mildest hearing problem that persists through the language development years will cause reading, spelling, attention span problems and other behavior problems. From birth to age 13, it has been reposted that 70 to 80% of children will experience a significant middle ear problem and upwards of 17% will have a long-term non-reversible hearing problem from either damage from recurrent and often undetected middle ear fluid and develop a non-reversible overlay of sensorineural hearing loss.
The Focus of Early Hearing and Vision Programs
School testing began because of the number of sensorineural hearing losses caused mainly by German Measles (Rubella) during pregnancy, in the 40 and ’50s. The hearing losses ranged from mild to profound and often there was a connection with both vision and hearing problems. School screening programs were both Vision and Hearing because even children with very significant problems went undetected until school age, in part because of a lack of awareness, lack of services and a being mainly a rural society.
Medical Information
A publication in the Journal of Otolaryngology stated, “More prescriptions are written for Otitis Media (middle ear fluid) than for any other condition”. Estimated costs for Otitis Media in the U.S.A. are 3 to 4 billion dollars a year and in Canada 600 million-plus. These costs do not include the family’s cost of travel, lost work time, uninsured use of antibiotics and uninsured costs related to repeated treatment or surgical intervention.
Core Hiring Principles
Testing children
1 in 10 who are suspected to have ADHD have an untreated hearing lossoften due to middle ear fluid or are found to have an undiagnosed permanent hearing loss, it is quite possible that undiagnosed or untreated hearing loss is masked under an ADHD diagnosis or a hearing loss has been misdiagnosed as ADHD because many symptoms are similar: reading-spelling-short attention span-listening skill problems-general behavioral problems
Public School Hearing Testing
The Audiologists have always recommended annual or biannual hearing tests for children under 13 and adults over 40. Pure Tone Hearing Screening in public schools was commonplace and often regulated in the past.
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Internet-Based Hearing Triage: Hearing Testing for Children
The company has developed a fully automated client-server hearing testing and classification system for the Internet with competitive Federal Research Funds and other public and private investment.The system automatically tests hearing, classifies by Pattern and Level of hearing, stores, analyzes, reports, provides follows-up and recommended assistive listening devices.
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Background
Middle Ear Fluid and Hearing Testing
The Medical and Educational Debate
How to treat children’s middle ear fluid problems has been an ongoing debate since the extent of the problem gained recognition in the early 1950s because of the implementation of pre and public school hearing screening programs. What is the best course of action, medication or surgery to treat the problem? There even those who suggest that no treatment provides because if one withholds treatment long enough the infection and pain will finally go away.
Cost-cutting hearing testing vs. medication
Based on the high incidence of middle ear related hearing changes, Hearing Healthcare Professionals have repeatedly reported in the literature, “hearing losses must be zealously identified and remediated, both medically and educationally”. Well Baby Hearing Clinics, Pre-School and Public School Hearing Testing began in the early 1950s and were the backbone of early hearing identification in North America until the early 1990s. Beginning in the late 1980’s cost-cutting measures in education saw the hearing testing programs eliminated because of their high referral rates to Family Physicians and Pediatricians for treatment of middle ear fluid problems.
