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Academic, behavioural and quality of life outcomes of slight to mild hearing loss in late childhood: a population-based study
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posted on 2019-01-01, 00:00 authored by Jing Wang, Jon Quach, Valerie Sung, Peter Carew, Ben Edwards, Anneke Grobler, Lisa GoldLisa Gold, Melissa WakeOBJECTIVE: To investigate the associations of hearing thresholds and slight to mild hearing loss with academic, behavioural and quality of life outcomes in children at a population level. METHODS: Design and participants:children aged 11-12 years in the population-based cross-sectional Child Health CheckPoint study within the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Audiometry:mean hearing threshold across 1, 2 and 4 kHz (better and worse ear); slight/mild hearing loss (threshold of 16-40 decibels hearing loss (dB HL)). Outcomes: National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy, language, teacher-reported learning, parent and teacher reported behaviour and self-reported quality of life. Analysis:linear regression quantified associations of hearing threshold/loss with outcomes. RESULTS: Of 1483 children (mean age 11.5 years), 9.2% and 13.1% had slight/mild bilateral and unilateral hearing loss, respectively. Per SD increment in better ear threshold (5.7 dB HL), scores were worse on several academic outcomes (eg, reading 0.11 SD, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.16), parent-reported behaviour (0.06 SD, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.11) and physical (0.09 SD, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.14) and psychosocial (0.06 SD, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.11) Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL). Compared with normally hearing children, children with bilateral slight/mild losses scored 0.2-0.3 SDs lower in sentence repetition, teacher-reported learning and physical PedsQL but not other outcomes. Similar but attenuated patterns were seen in unilateral slight/mild losses. CONCLUSIONS: Hearing thresholds and slight/mild hearing loss showed small but important associations with some child outcomes at 11-12 years. Justifying hearing screening or intervention at this age would require better understanding of its longitudinal and indirect effects, alongside effective management and appropriate early identification programmes.
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Journal
Archives of disease in childhoodVolume
104Issue
11Pagination
1056 - 1063Publisher
BMJ Publishing GroupLocation
London, Eng.Publisher DOI
ISSN
0003-9888eISSN
1468-2044Language
engPublication classification
C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
2019, The AuthorsUsage metrics
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