Hearing screening outcomes for persons with intellectual disability: A preliminary report of findings from the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games

Abstract

The Special Olympics Healthy Hearing Program provides a unique opportunity to determine the hearing service needs of individuals with mild intellectual disabilities participating in athletic endeavors in countries throughout the world. The Healthy Hearing Program screened 855 of 1800 athletes with intellectual disability over a period of a week at Nagano, Japan. Of 855 athletes screened, 58% passed the DPOAE screen and therefore required no further testing. Of the remaining 42%, 186 did not pass pure-tone screening. This number of athletes represents 21.8% of all athletes screened. Tympanometry outcomes for the 186 athletes failing pure-tone screening showed 56% (104) also failing this measure of middle-ear function. 65% of these 104 athletes’ outer ear canals were blocked/partially-blocked with cerumen. This amount is in contrast to the 38% presence of cerumen for the 82 athletes failing pure-tone screening but passing tympanometry.