Nonorganic Hearing Problems in School-Children Functional Deafness

Abstract

Functional deafness is a term covering different forms of hearing loss in which insufficient or no underlying organic cause can be demonstrated. Little attention has been paid to this condition in children heretofore. The suspicion of functional deafness is aroused primarily by the lack of agreement between repeated or different hearing tests. The typical audiogram of functional deafness shows a bilateral flat perceptive hearing loss on the 60-80 dB level. Psychiatric investigation usually indicates that these children are in a state of conflict with school or home. Frequently it is a child of normal intelligence with a practical inclination and without particularly great studying ability and, often, from a home of high intellectual standard where good scholastic performance is demanded. The scope of the problem is evident from the fact that several children had been fitted with hearing aids and/or placed in classes for hard of hearing for shorter or longer periods before the true condition was recognized.