The effect of language on maternal knowledge of the child's hearing status

The aim of this study was to assess whether mothers whose first language is not English are as accurate as English speakers in reporting on their child's hearing. Some Health Trusts are using parental report following an educative process as part of their screening programme for hearing impairment. At present, in Wandsworth, London, UK, where there is a relatively high ethnic minority population, many of whom speak little or no English, the parental educative programme is carried out in English. There are many studies supporting the translation of the educative programme into appropriate minority languages but the authors wanted to assess whether doing so would actually improve the hearing impaired identification rate by the raised awareness programme. The presence or absence of concern in the two groups of mothers, one English speaking and the other non-English speaking, was elicited by direct questioning and its accuracy checked by formal hearing assessment. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in the reliability of maternal observation between the two groups in normal hearing and hearing impaired children. However, two-thirds of non-English speaking mothers of hearing impaired children were not concerned about their child's hearing status, compared to one-fifth of the English speaking mothers. Although the numbers of hearing impaired children are small, and the reason for the high maternal inaccuracy in non-English speakers in this group has not yet been ascertained, it seems reasonable to recommend translation of the parental educative leaflets in Wandsworth into minority languages. This recommendation is supported by other studies.