Surgeon Says Some ‘Dull’ Pupils Are Just Deaf

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31881, 8 January 1969, Page 10

Surgeon Says Some ‘Dull’ Pupils Are Just Deaf

Some children who are labelled inattentive, dull or even mentally retarded at school are simply suffering from impaired hearing, says Mr M. S. Robertson, ear, nose and throat surgeon at the Christchurch Hospital, in an article in the “New Zealand Medical Journal.”

Mr Robertson’s article describes the treatment of 62 children in a period of 18 months for a condition caused by infection of the inner ear. The infection is a common cause of loss of hearing in childhood, and Mr Robertson's treatment involved the insertion of a tiny polythene tube.

In 88 of the ears treated tn that way, the results were most encouraging, he says. “A majority of children in this series were referred after having failed the school hearing test," he says. “Past history revealed that these children had had numerous

bouts of acute middle-ear infection, which had not been helped by removal of the tonsils-and adenoids. “Many had poof school records and tended to be labelled inattentive, dull or even mentally retarded. Seven wore in special classes, and one, a 12-year-old, with a 50 decibel air-bone gap in both ears, was in an institution for the educationally sub-normal. Although he had a pile of psychological reports, he nad somehow escaped the net and had never had his hearing tested.”

Mr Robertson says that before the middle-ear ventilating tubes came into use, children with secretory otitis media were subjected to repeated surgery for the removal of adenoids, airpressure treatment of the ear. and radiotherapy. “Two children in this series,” he says, “were even supplied with hearing aids, presumably because the condition was not recognised.” He says that permanent conductive hearing loss in childhood should be preventable. Acute otitis media should be considered cured only when the hearing returns to normal, and ideally this

should be confirmed on audiometry. Mr Robertson is critical of doctors who do not make a good job of removing tonsils and adenoids, “All those who undertake the removal of tonsils and adenoids should be able to perform the operation competently,” he says. He adds that “untrained and occasional operators” often leave , behind “large

chunks” of lymphoid tissue, and that in doing so they perpetuate the myth that tonsils and adenoids grow again. He expresses the hope that, by the use of the tiny polythene tubes, most of the chronic disability resulting from secretory otitis media can be avoided.