Late diagnosis of congenital Hearing Impairment in preschoolers who attend the Special Education Institute for Hearing and Language. Maracay, Venezuela

摘要

Annually, up to 6 per 1000 live-born infants worldwide, suffer permanent hearing loss at birth or during the neonatal period. Such impairment is associated with defective language acquisition, and learning development. This fact supports the recommendation of The American National Institute of Health for universal neonatal screening in all infants younger than three months old. We investigated the prevalence of late Hearing Impairment diagnosis in preschoolers in the Special Education Institute. A survey was sent to the parents asking for several characteristics of children's hearing impairment, and clinical histories provide information about social stratum, and risk factors. The Spearman coeficient, Fisher and Chi tests were used for statistical analisis. There were a 96% of late hearing impairment diagnosis in preschoolers. For this reason is important to prepare plans to prevent it, such as the universal neonatal screening with automated auditory brainstem responses