Hearing-impaired children in Venezuela: 1985

The first Venezuelan Survey of Deaf Children during the 1984-85 school year was a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Education in Venezuela and Gaullaudet University in the U.S. Limited in its first year to the capital city of Caracas, the study used a survey methodology developed over 18 years in the U.S. Annual Survey of Hearing-Impaired Children and Youth. In its first year of operation the Venezuelan study collected information on 804 deaf students, over 90% of whom were between the ages of 3 and 14, had severe or profound hearing losses (i.e., hearing level of 71 dB or greater in the better ear), and experienced their hearing impairments before the age of 3. Significant findings of the Venezuelan Survey include a large number of children (29%) with hearing losses caused by maternal rubella. This result is important to educators because rubella-deafened children tend to have other handicaps in addition to their hearing impairment. Meningitis was the most frequently reported after-birth cause of hearing losses in Caracas. Thirty-six percent of the Venezuelan students were reported to have other handicaps in addition to their hearing impairments. Survey results also raise questions about the educational status of less severely hearing impaired children and older deaf adolescents; these two groups were not reported in any significant numbers to the survey. Implications of the Venezuelan data are discussed, and, where appropriate, comparisons with data from the U.S. 1985 survey are made.