Approximately 5,000 infants are born with moderate, severe, or profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss (HL) each year in the U.S. and many more have mild, unilateral, or progressive HL that will be identified in childhood. However, the degree of HL alone cannot predict a child’s language or educational performance. Furthermore, no treatment is applicable to all children of HL. It is there for advantageous to evaluate the child’s overall well-being in a meaningful way.

Assessing quality of life (QOL) in clinical practice quantifies the relationship between translational indicators and the child’s subjective experience. There are limited numbers of QOL assessment tools available for children with specific conditions, and none designed specifically for children with HL. A validated hearing-related QOL questionnaire could aid a clinician in determining when an intervention should be tried to improve the child’s overall well-being, whether an intervention is beneficial, and whether one intervention is better than another.

To address this need, Clinicians and Scientists in the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis have created the Hearing Environments and Reflection on Quality of Life Questionnaire for Children ages 7 to 12 (HEAR-QL Questionnaire for Children). The HEAR-QL Questionnaire for Children is a condition-specific QOL measure designed to determine how a child perceives the social and emotional effects of their HL, especially in environments in which HL might have a great impact on children’s QOL.

Obtain an agreement for an assessment by clicking on this link.