Parental Judgement of Hearing Loss in Infants With Cleft Palate
1Spires Cleft Centre Oxford, Level 2, Children's Hospital, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headley Way, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Insights
Parental concern about hearing in children with cleft palate does not always align with objective findings. Cleft type did not significantly impact middle ear status or hearing in this study.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Audiology
- Craniofacial Anomalies
- Otolaryngology
Background:
- Children with cleft palate are at higher risk for middle ear issues and hearing loss.
- Parental concern is a key indicator for seeking audiological assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if parental concern accurately reflects hearing assessment findings in infants with cleft palate.
- To analyze the relationship between cleft type, middle ear status, and hearing loss in this population.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective review of 155 infant case notes from a tertiary cleft center.
- Comparison of documented parental concern with audiological assessments (otoscopy, tympanometry, hearing tests).
- Analysis of findings in relation to cleft type.
Main Results:
- Parental concern did not consistently correlate with objective hearing assessment results.
- Cleft type showed no significant relationship with middle ear status or hearing loss.
- Objective assessments are crucial, as parental reports may not always be accurate.
Conclusions:
- Clinicians should acknowledge parental concern but recognize potential discrepancies with test results.
- Speech and language therapy advice does not need to be tailored based on cleft type due to lack of influence on hearing.
- Further research with larger sample sizes is recommended to support statistical analysis.
Objective:
To investigate whether reported parental concern is supported by hearing assessment findings in children with cleft palate. To describe this population by examining the relationship between cleft type, middle ear status, and hearing loss.
Design:
Retrospective consecutive case note review.
Setting:
Tertiary institutional regional cleft center.
Patients:
Consecutive cases of 194 babies born with cleft palate and referred to the specialist center from January 2009 and December 2013. Following exclusions, data from 155 infants were included for analysis.
Interventions:
Documented parental concern in ear, nose and throat (ENT) and speech and language therapy case notes were compared to hearing assessment findings. Findings from otoscopic examination, tympanometry, and hearing assessment were analyzed with respect to cleft type.
Results:
Parental concern is not always accurately reflected by objective assessment particularly when no concern is reported. Analysis of the cohort examined suggests that cleft type is not related to middle ear findings or hearing.
Conclusions:
It is helpful to be aware of parental concern and clinicians should consider that parental reports may not be accurately reflected by test results. As cleft type was not found to substantially influence middle ear status or hearing it is not recommended to adapt speech and language advice offered to families according to cleft type. Follow-up studies to increase participant numbers would support a statistical analysis.
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