Prevalence of Hearing disorders in 3-6 year old Children of Kindergartens in Yazd City

A hearing– impaired patient is defined as one with abnormal or reduced function in hearing resulting from an auditory disorder. The goal of any preschool and schools screening program should be to accurately indentify those children whose hearing has been impaired due to conductive and / or sensory– neural pathology. This cross– sectional descriptive study was done on 577 children (299 girls and 278 boys) aged between 3–6 years at kindergartens of Yazd city from September 2005 to January 2006. The otoscopy examination, pure-tone screening and impedance study was conducted after completion of awareness form of the hearing loss existence by the parents. In this study, there were 12.6% abnormal conditions of external ear canal, 34.2% abnormal tympanic membrane, 35.9% abnormal tympanograms and 13.4% hearing loss including 11.5% conductive hearing loss, 1.5% sensory-neural hearing loss and 0.5% mixed hearing loss. With respect to the high prevalence and negative effects of middle ear disorders in learning of preschool children, and also due to the importance of early identification and intervention of hearing loss in aural rehabilitation programs, increasing the awareness and education of people, especially parents about the effects of hearing disorders and its prevention and identification is very important.