Minimal Hearing Loss in Children: Current State of the Problem

Abstract

The term minimal hearing loss is generally understood as bilateral hearing loss of the mild degree at speech frequencies, high-frequency hearing loss, and unilateral hearing loss. It has now been confirmed that minimal hearing loss may have an evident negative impact on a child’s development and quality of life. The importance of the problem is underlined by significant occurrences of minimal hearing impairments: the total occurrence of this pathology reaches 0.55/1000 births with the number of minimal impairments increasing up to 54/1000 children by the school age. The main attention of professionals is usually given to bilateral hearing losses of significant degrees. At the same time, slight hearing loss and unilateral hearing loss are usually left without due attention. There is no universal protocol for helping children with minimal hearing impairments. This article presents the current state of knowledge on minimal hearing loss and the approaches to the planning of individual intervention programs for children with this pathology, as well as describes available hearing technology aimed at compensating hearing losses.