AVALIAÇÃO AUDITVA EM ESCOLARES DA REDE PÚBLICA MUNICIPAL DE SÃO LUÍS-MARANHÃO

Abstract

Introduction: Hearing problems go unnoticed by parents and teachers. Past five years of age, the main complaint, about children who have hard hearing is that they have difficulty in learning. Objective: Evaluate otoscopic and hearing alterations in school children; compare these results to suspected hearing loss, through triage with the exams of evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAE) transients (TEOAE) and by distortion product (DPEOAE), using data from audiometric exams; observe which of the procedures of EOAE better respond to school children triage; characterize the types of hearing losses in accordance to the audiometric exam. Material and methods: Transversal study in 451 school children, between 6 and 11 years of age, students of grade 1 (fundamental), of 19 municipal public schools in São Luís, from the period of 1st August to 15th December 2005. At the school, otoscopic exams with the removal of wax were done when necessary, and the TEOAE and DPEOAE exams were also done on all school children. Audiometry (in an acoustic cabin) and acustic impedance were performed on the children which presented alteration at any point during the TEOAE and/or DPEOAE exams. Results: A frequency of 18,6% of wax balls and 7,6% of otoscopic alterations were found. As for the TEOAE and DPEOAE triage, no significant statistic difference was found when comparing the results of the exams which failed only in the TEOAE and DOEOAE with audiometric exam data, however, when comparing this fail data to both of these exams there was a significant difference (p < 0,05). The frequency of hearing alterations diagnosed was of 6,7%. Conclusions: The conductive hearing loss was the most frequent. Both EOAE procedures responded well to the hearing triage in school children.