Hearing Loss and Mental
Retardation
| This is a summary of a paper which was presented by the authors at the International Congress of Audiology held at
Bari, Italy during June 1996. The title of their work is “Coprevalence of Mental Retardation and Hearing Impairment”. It was authored by Susan Bunting and Sanford E. Gerber and is based on worked they performed in cooperation with the Arc-Santa Barbara. |
Hearing loss and the result, decreased learning ability, are both common in people with all forms of mental retardation. The presence of undetected significant hearing impairment in individuals with mental retardation is a serious problem.
Early detection of hearing impairment in such persons is essential for the full attainment of as many language skills and learning abilities as they are capable of achieving.
The simultaneous occurrence of mental retardation and hearing impairment has been a topic of intermittent, but continuing, interest since the 1950s. Several studies have shown that persons with mental retardation have an abnormally high incidence and prevalence of hearing impairment. Of course, it has long been known that persons with Down syndrome have frequent bouts of ear disease.
However, it had not been shown that the Down syndrome population does (or does not) differ from the population of those who are developmentally delayed but who do not have Down syndrome. Moreover, the effects of age and gender had not been considered. This study was undertaken to address those questions.
The subjects were 61 developmentally delayed adults, 48 of whom we got permission to examine. It turned out that 10 of the 48 were untestable for a variety of reasons. Another 16 were found to be normal according to our criterion. The remaining 22 underwent a variety of auditory tests.
It was found that males with Down syndrome did have poorer hearing than the subjects who do not have Down syndrome. The opposite was true for females; women without Down syndrome had poorer hearing than those with Down syndrome.
If we look at subjects under 50 years of age, we find that those without Down syndrome had poorer hearing. Generally, though, persons who are developmentally delayed, but do not have Down syndrome, showed greater hearing losses independent of gender or age. We cannot limit our concern to Down syndrome.
What conclusion must we draw from these data? It is essential to recall that hearing impairment, for any reason, is more common in the developmentally delayed population than it is in the general population.
Significantly, too, this difference is not limited to those with Down syndrome. Consequently, frequent and regular hearing assessment is essential for the
entire population of those who are developmentally delayed in order to optimize their abilities.
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