Eye problems common in children with hearing loss
Children born with hearing loss are two to three times more likely to have vision problems than children in general.
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Children born with hearing loss are two to three times more likely to have vision problems than children in general.
Children with hearing and visual loss face problems in communicating and interacting with others, which limits early childhood development. It is crucial for children's development that any hearing and vision problems be identified and treated as early as possible.
To get a better sense of whether children with hearing problems are more likely to have eye problems, researchers looked at 77 American children born with hearing loss who had undergone comprehensive eye exams as well as testing for genetic disorders that can carry the risk of both hearing and vision problems.
It was found twenty-five of the children, or about a third, had some eye problem. When the researchers removed the 24 children known to have genetic syndromes related to hearing and vision loss from their analysis, the percentage with vision loss fell to about one quarter. But more than half of the children with a genetic disorder had vision problems as well as hearing loss.
The most common type of eye problem among the children studied was outward or inward deviation of the eye, followed by disorders of refraction such as nearsightedness and farsightedness. The severity of hearing loss was the same for children with and without eye problems.
All of the hearing problems among the children in the study were treatable with hearing aids or cochlear implants, while almost all the vision problems could be corrected with glasses or surgery. But the children's eye problems could have gone undiagnosed if they hadn't been screened for them.
The findings show that children with hearing loss need a complete eye examination.
Children with hearing and visual loss face problems in communicating and interacting with others, which limits early childhood development. It is crucial for children's development that any hearing and vision problems be identified and treated as early as possible.
To get a better sense of whether children with hearing problems are more likely to have eye problems, researchers looked at 77 American children born with hearing loss who had undergone comprehensive eye exams as well as testing for genetic disorders that can carry the risk of both hearing and vision problems.
It was found twenty-five of the children, or about a third, had some eye problem. When the researchers removed the 24 children known to have genetic syndromes related to hearing and vision loss from their analysis, the percentage with vision loss fell to about one quarter. But more than half of the children with a genetic disorder had vision problems as well as hearing loss.
The most common type of eye problem among the children studied was outward or inward deviation of the eye, followed by disorders of refraction such as nearsightedness and farsightedness. The severity of hearing loss was the same for children with and without eye problems.
All of the hearing problems among the children in the study were treatable with hearing aids or cochlear implants, while almost all the vision problems could be corrected with glasses or surgery. But the children's eye problems could have gone undiagnosed if they hadn't been screened for them.
The findings show that children with hearing loss need a complete eye examination.
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