Conductive hearing loss is one of
the most common disabilities in children with Down Syndrome (DS). The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the results from tympanometry and transient otoacoustic emissions (TOAEs) in children with DS in special schools. The
research investigates the results of tympanometry and TOAEs testing for a group
of 57 children with DS aged 7.1-16.2 years.
It was found that Type A
tympanograms were found in 4 participants, type C1 in 2 participants, type C2
in 15 participants, and type B in 33 participants. TOAE was present in six and
absent in 48 participants. A combination of tympanometry and TOAE is a fast,efficient and objective evaluation of middle ear and outer hair cell functionsin children with DS. This test battery successfully examined over 80% of the
children with mild to moderate intellectual impairment, who would be difficult
to test using behavioral methods.