Conductive hearing loss in children with autism

Infantile autism is a serious comprehensive developmental disorder. The diagnosis of hearing loss or its exclusion, which often suggests suspected autism, is very important for early ENT, psychotherapy, and psychiatric treatment. One hundred children diagnosed with autism aged from 3 to 18 years, with a median age of 5 years, were evaluated. The control group of healthy children consisted of 100 children, aged from 3 to 18 years, with a median age of 6 years. Anamnesis and physical examination, including pediatric assessment and otoscopic examination, were carried out on children in both groups. Each child underwent bilateral otoacoustic emission examination in the 0.7, 1, 2, and 4 kHz bands and impedance audiometry examination. The data obtained were subjected to a basic statistical assessment. Chi(2) Pearson's test was used to compare results of tests in both groups. The absence of otoacoustic emission for the 1 and 2 kHz bands was significantly more frequent in the group of autistic children than in the control group. Furthermore, types B and C2 tympanometric curves were significantly more common in the group of autistic children than in the group of healthy children.