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The detection of childhood deafness in Ayrshire.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the age at referral and at first fitting of hearing aids for children with a bilateral sensorineural hearing impairment of 30dB or more born in Ayrshire 1991-1996. To assess the value of routine health visitor distraction test screening for hearing impairment. To identify areas for improvement in the service.


DESIGN
A review of data contained within the prospectively collected. Educational Audiology database.


SETTING
Area covered by the Ayrshire and Arran Health Board.


SUBJECTS
Children born in the years 1991-1996 who were screened for hearing impairment by the distraction test, and those born in the same period who have been identified as having a bilateral sensorineural hearing impairment of 30dB or worse.


RESULTS
Thirty-two hearing impaired children were identified from the database. The distraction test screen had a sensitivity of 45%, a specificity of 93%, a positive predictive value of 0.6% and a negative predictive value of 99.9%. Forty eight percent of hearing impaired children were diagnosed before the age of one year, and 17% before six months. Sources of delay were identified at all stages of the process from initial identification to fitting of hearing aids.


CONCLUSION
There remain scope for improvement in the detection of hearing impairment in Ayrshire.