Sensorineural hearing loss imprint on fine motor skills: A pediatric and adolescent innovative study.

Background: Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common type of permanent hearing impairment and results in balance and motor deficits in children which may affect and/or delay all developmental indicators.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the consequences of sensorineural hearing loss regarding fine motor skills in children and adolescents.

Methods: Two hundred children with an age range between 7 to 18 years and diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss were selected from the Public School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in El-Minia district, Minia governorate, Egypt. The outcome was assessed by the use of Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency Second Edition scale (BOT-2) to measure fine motor skills.

Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the scores of Fine Motor Precision and Fine Motor Integration subtests of each study subgroup and its counterpart subgroup in the control group (normative values according to the scale) which has the same age and gender characteristics where p value equals (0.0008 or less, 0.0009 or less) respectively, with a large effect size less than -0.83.

Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that children with sensorineural hearing loss have a defect in their fine motor skills when compared to normal children of the same gender and age groups according to Bruininks-Oseretsky scale.