Audiological screening of school children--preliminary results

An audiological screening of 1120 school children aged seven and ten revealed abnormal tympanograms in 11% of the ears. In the younger children the failure rate was twice as high as in the older. Follow-up examinations showed, however, that only about three per cent of the ears screened displayed pathological middle ear pressure after 8-16 weeks. In the light of this the cost-effectiveness of screening tympanometry can be questioned. Pathological pure tone audiograms were found in 0.5% of the ears with normal middle ear pressure.