Clinical balance assessment tools for children with hearing loss: a scoping review

Balance dysfunction exists in children with hearing loss, especially sensorineural loss, impacting on cognitive development, socio-emotional development and literacy. However, there is limited assessment of balance in this population, which further impedes childhood development. The objective of this review was to identify clinical, low- technology and inexpensive tools used to evaluate balance in children with hearing loss.

A scoping review method with reference to the JBI, was used where a search was conducted on electronic databases including, but not limited to, EBSCOHost, MEDLINE, PubMED, Web of Science and Wiley. In addition, grey literature and hand searches were also used. The review included children between 3 and 15 years of age with hearing loss.

A total of 68 articles were found where 27% of the tests were norm-referenced tests, 64% were criterion referenced tests and 9% could not be identified.

Tests such as the Tandem gait test, Pediatric Balance Scale (PBS), Clinical Test of Sensory Interaction for Balance (mCTSIB)/Pediatric Version of Clinical Test for Sensory Interaction of Balance (P-CTSIB), Dynamic Gait Index and the Timed-up-and-Go were identified to be relatively inexpensive and low-technology clinical tools and have thus, been summarized in this review.