Aamir Yousuf¹*, Abdul Hanan² and Ishfaq Ahmad³

¹Assistant Professor, Department of ENT and HNS, GMC Anantnag, Kashmir, India
²Senior Resident, Department of ENT and HNS, GMC Anantnag, Kashmir, India
³Audiologist, Department of ENT and HNS, GMC Anantnag, Kashmir, India

*Corresponding Author: Aamir Yousuf, Assistant Professor, Department of ENT and HNS, GMC Anantnag, Kashmir, India.

Received: November 25, 2021; Published: January 27, 2022

Hearing loss has become the fourth leading cause of disability globally. According to a range of studies and surveys conducted in different countries, around 0.5 to 5 in every 1000 neonates and infants have congenital or early childhood onset sensorineural deafness or severe-to-profound hearing impairment [1]. Hearing loss is a hidden problem because children, especially infants and toddlers cannot tell us that they are not hearing normally. Nearly all their parents have normal hearing with little or no knowledge about hearing loss in children. Deaf and hearing-impaired children often experience delayed development of speech, language and cognitive skills, which may result in slow learning and difficulty progressing in school. Congenital and early childhood onset deafness or severe-to-profound hearing impairment may affect the auditory neuropathway of children at a later developmental stage if appropriate and optimal interventions are not provided within the critical period of central auditory pathway development. The critical language learning period of a child is from birth to about three and half years of age. If the hearing deficit is corrected before the child is of six months age, the development of speech and language is more or less normal and equal to that of a normal hearing child. Therefore, early detection is a vitally important element in providing appropriate support for deaf and hearing-impaired babies that will help them enjoy equal opportunities in society alongside all other children.

References

1. Choo V. “Screening for hearing impairment”. The Lancet8846 (1993): 686-687.
2. World Health Organization (WHO). Newborn and infant hearing screening: current issues and guiding principles for action. WHO Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, November, 39 (2010).
3. Finitzo T., et al. “Year 2000 position statement: Principles and guidelines for early hearing detection and intervention programs”. Pediatrics4 I (2000): 798-817.

Citation

Citation: Aamir Yousuf., et al. “Deafness: The Neglected and Hidden Disability".Acta Scientific Otolaryngology 4.2 (2022): 27-30.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Aamir Yousuf., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.