Number of teens with hearing loss increases

Published 5:00 am Wednesday, August 18, 2010

LOS ANGELES — Teenagers aren’t necessarily tuning out adults; they simply might not be able to hear them.

The proportion of American teens with slight hearing loss has increased 30 percent in the past 15 years, and the number with mild or worse hearing loss has increased 70 percent, researchers said Tuesday.

One in every five teens now has at least slight hearing loss, which can affect learning, speech perception, social skills development and self-image; one in every 20 has a more severe loss.

The authors of the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association eliminated ear infections, gunshots and exposure to loud noises in the environment as causes for the hearing loss, but could not identify a specific cause. A recent Australian study, however, found a 70 percent increased risk of hearing loss associated with the use of headphones in portable music, and many experts suspect they are the primary cause of hearing loss in teens.

“Personal stereos are the most important change in the culture in the last 15 to 20 years,” said Dr. Tommie Robinson Jr., president of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. “Everybody has their own little device now, and how many times have you passed somebody and could hear their music?”

Even the relatively low level of damage found in the study can create problems. “Just because a hearing loss is slight does not mean it is insignificant, particularly when it is in the high frequencies,” said Dr. Alison Grimes, manager of the audiology clinic at Ronald Reagan-UCLA Medical Center.

In English, soft high-frequency sounds such as S, F, Th and Sh “carry a great deal of meaning, and are very important sounds to be able to discern,” Grimes said. But those are the first to be lost, especially in a noisy environment like a classroom.

The researchers found that the proportion of teens with any hearing loss rose from 14.9 percent in the first survey to 19.5 percent in the second, while the proportion of mild or worse hearing loss rose from 3.8 percent to 5.5 percent. Males were significantly more likely than females to suffer loss, and teens living below the U.S.-designated poverty level were significantly more likely to have loss than those in areas with higher income. There were no racial differences, however.