ABSTRACT
Classification is the key to understanding hearing loss. The causes of hearing loss are usually divided into congenital and acquired. Acquired conditions are separated out according to whether they were acquired during the prenatal, perinatal or postnatal period. A variety of middle-ear disorders can cause conductive deafness in childhood. The most common of deafness is otitis media with effusion (OME), also known as secretory otitis media, etc. Because OME is such a common condition, tympanometry is a vital adjunct to almost any method of measuring hearing thresholds where the levels obtained appear to be suboptimal. Clearly the identification of hearing loss is commonly linked to the child's communication skills. It is important to be aware of signs in the child's communication development which may point to this sort of problem. There are a wide range of assessments which contribute towards the differential diagnosis of hearing loss in the young child.
