New study: How well do children hear in the Hanover region?
REGION (red).
Good hearing is the basis for the healthy development of children – it is particularly important to recognize and treat hearing impairments at an early stage. The Hanover region and the German Hearing Center of the Hanover Medical School (MHH) have jointly launched a research project on the initiative of the hearing region, which uses additional hearing tests in the school entrance examinations to examine how well children in the Hanover region can hear. “It is important to us to give all children the same opportunities for a good start at school and later in life. Hearing is not only important for children’s language development, for learning to read and write. Emotional development and social interaction also depend heavily on hearing ability,” says region president Steffen Krach. “The aim of our pilot study is to discover hearing impairments as early as possible and to provide all affected children with effective support,” adds Dr. Andrea Hanke.
A subjective hearing test IS performed as standard at every school entrance exam. The children hear different tone frequencies with increasing volume and have to indicate when they hear the tone (tone audiogram). Since the beginning of the course in October last year, the team for social pediatrics and youth medicine in the Hanover region has been offering an additional objective hearing test as part of the school entry examinations: the measurement of otoacoustic emissions, the so-called OAE measurement. This objective measurement method checks whether the child’s inner ear is functioning properly. “Many parents are already familiar with this from newborn hearing screening. The good thing about this second measurement method is that it does not require the child to cooperate, which means it overcomes possible language and understanding barriers. In the past few weeks, there have already been the first cases with different results from the two measurement methods. We can then refer these children directly to the ENT doctors in the Hanover region who have been informed about the project,” reports Dr. Andrea Wünsch, team leader of the team for social pediatrics and youth medicine in the Hanover region.
Every year, the doctors in the team see all of the around 12,000 children in the current school year, so the school entry examinations offer the best opportunity for close-meshed hearing testing. “Participation in the additional objective hearing tests is of course completely painless and voluntary for all children, but is very well accepted by the children and parents. This also shows that many people are already sensitized to good hearing,” says Prof. Dr. Anke Lesinski–date of divorce from the MHH. The driving force behind the study is the Hanover region’s Hörregion initiative, which promotes numerous projects for good hearing from a young age to old age. “The additional OAE measurements are an important building block for identifying possible weak points in the care of children and subsequently developing solutions,” says the head of the hearing region, Nils Meyer. “I am very excited about the results, which will certainly also be of interest nationwide.” The hearing screening is initially scheduled for one year and is then determined. The study is supported by Diatec Diagnostic GmbH, which has made 20 OAE measuring devices (MAICO EroScan) available to the Hanover region.
Photo: Hanover region