Teacher accuracy in the identification of pre-school pupils with hearing loss

Abstract

Teachers of 110 pre-school pupils used a questionnaire to identify which children they thought would fail a hearing screening. Following screening, the data was compared to both audiometric only, and combined audiometric and tymponometric screening results. Teachers identified one out of six pupils who failed audiometric screening, and one out of seven who failed combined screening. We concluded that teachers could not accurately identify pupils with hearing problems and should not be used to detect hearing losses in pupils without prior education and training.