Parental Perspective on Impact of Hearing Assistive Devices on Children with Hearing Impairment

Being a common disability in Pakistan, hearing impairment causes the problem in the language development of the child. This cause delay in their speech and language development and need of using hearing assistive devices to fulfill their communicational needs. Parental perceptions regarding their children’s auditory behaviors by using these hearing assistive devices is essential. Objective: To evaluate the Parental perception of impact of hearing assistive devices of children with hearing impairment using PEACH questionnaire. Methods: This cross-sectional Study was conducted from Nov-2018 to Oct-2019 at Isra Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences, Isra University, Islamabad. Sample recruited N=100 parents of children with mild to profound hearing loss using hearing aids and cochlear implants using convenience sampling. Sample included both genders and 1 to 15 years of age. Basic demographic sheet and PEACH (Parents’ Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children) Questionnaire was used for data collection. The data were analyzed by SPSS version-22. Results: Results revealed a significant (p<0.05) association of Peech Category with type of hearing assistive device use with higher number of children with typical performance noted in cochlear implant 38(62.3%) group compared to hearing aid users17(43.6%) in quite environment. In noisy environment too, significantly (p=0.001) more cases 47(77.0%) revealed typical performance compared to hearing aid users. 18(46.2%). Children with higher hearing age and those who received speech therapy revealed better performance on PEACH questionnaire (p<0.001). Conclusions: Children using cochlear implants have better listening in everyday life conditions compared to hearing aid. It provides comprehension and understanding of language than hearing aid.