[Therapeutic education for young hearing-impaired children]

Modern therapeutic education of young hearing-impaired children is premised on the active use of residual hearing for helping the deaf child learn language and speech. In this case, measurement of degree of the child's hearing loss and proper fitting of hearing aids are indispensable. Today, accurate measurement of hearing can be made even in infancy by the combined use of behavioral audiometry and auditory brain stem response audiometry. Fitting hearing aids for young hearing-impaired children is possible, if there is an experienced clinician. During the period 1973-1991, I conducted a home training program to 1,613 young hearing-impaired children at the Department of Otolaryngology, Teikyo University Hospital. Out of the 1,613 children, 222 were under one year old, 481 one year old, 470 two years old, 246 three years old, 104 four years old, 69 five years old and 21 six years old. In 1983, we made a follow-up study of hearing-impaired children who had received my home training program and were receiving compulsory education at that time. According to the replies of 87 children to our questionnaire, approximately 70 per cent of the children were attending ordinary schools.