HARD OF HEARING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 185, 7 August 1935, Page 5

HARD OF HEARING.

TEST FOR CHILDREN. AUDIOMETER NOW AVAILABLE. MAYOR'S GENEROUS GIFT. "There are CO children in every 1000 who have a hearing defect, and 48 of these can have their disability remedied if properly treated," said Dr. J. Hardie Neil, president of the New Zealand League for the Hard of Hearing, at a I demonstration of an audiometer at the i Wollesley Street school yesterday afteri noon. This apparatus is a gift to the league from the Mayor, Mr. Ernest Davis, and the demonstration was made before the donor, the Minister of Education, Mr. Smith, and representatives of the Education Department, the Auckland Education Board, the Health Department and members of the board of governors of the Hard of Hearing League.

The audiometer is an apparatus for testing the hearing. It measures the degree of deafness -with scientific accuracy. In appearance it is like a phonograph, but the operator can attach to it as many as 40 earphones, so that the hearing of a room full of school children can be tested in from 15 to 30 minutes. When the operator starts the machine the children hear through the earphones a woman's voice giving numbers. Two groups are given by her, followed by a man's voice giving other numbers. In each instance the first numbers in each group sound as though the speaker were near. As they continue the voice becomes fainter and fainter, but it is never so faint that it cannot be heard if the child has normal hearing. According to experts there is much unexpected deafness in children. A slight loss can be discovered by the audiometer test and if prompt and proper treatment follows in many cases the trouble can be checked, if not removed. As the voice of the gramophone record speaks to the class the children fill in on a card the numbers and an examination of these shows initially the children with defective hearing,

Serious Consequences Of Defects. In thanking Mr. Davis for his gift, which he said the league would use in conjunction with the Health and Education Departments, Dr. Hardie Neil said that a child with defective hearing was heavily handicapped in life. "The hearing of the child must be up to the standard of its class mates," he said, "otherwise the child may be deemed to be mentally subnormal when it partially fails to grasp the import of the teaching and loses the important modulations of the voice whicn are often more expressive than the actual words.

"The form of deafness most prevalent in school children is mainly due to infections. In England it has been found that the subsequent results of these conditions cause the greatest number of rejections in Army recruiting—so per 1000. In the modern method of testing the hearing advantage is taken of the fact that, from the softest sound that can be heard by the normal human ear up to the very loud sound that produces pain, there are a definite number of uniformly spaced steps or decrees of loudness that are called sensation units. As the child records what it hears on a chart the degree of deafness can be accurately detected in sensation units. A loss of nine units or over calls for medical examination. Ton thousand London school children were tested and it was found that C to 8 per cent had I some defect in one or both ears. Minor defects may "Become severe if allowed to develop and may cause serious injury to health and happiness.

League's Proposals. "The league's scheme is: (1) Detection [of hearing defects and their measurement by the- audiometer; (2) medical examination and diagnosis of the defect; (3) medical or surgical treatment; (4) retesting to assess the results of treatment; (5) decision by educa- ! tional and medical authorities in regard Ito the subsequent care of the child.

I "Wβ wish to express gratitude to Mr. ' Davis, who with a generosity to the afflicted characteristic of his family offered to provide this expensive instrument. His message to us was that he greatly appreciated the privilege of assisting in the prevention of disablement and trusted that the whole of the Dominion would have the advantage of its use. Mr. Davis is vice-patron and a member of the board of governors of the league. One of our aims and objects 13 to co-operate with the !Ncw Zealand

Government in dealing with the prevention of deafness in children, and we are grateful to him for placing us in the position of being able to make this most important contribution." Dr. Xeil thanked the acoustic engineer, Mr. Sanderson, B.Sc, and other members of the scientific staff of the IYA broadcasting station, who had given valuable assistance. Congratulations. The Minister of Education congratulated th© league on securing the instrument. If only 50 per cent of the success claimed for the apparatus were achieved, he said, wonderful work would be accomplished. He would do all he could to assist. The ■ gift was typicai of the Davis family, which for many years had been in the forefront of every movement for. the good of the city and its people. Mr. Davis said he was pleased to be able to donate the audiometer. He paid a tribute to the wonderful work done for the league by Dr. Hardie Neil.