Abstract

ARAUJO, Danielle Mendonça; ROVERE, Natália Caroline  and  LIMA, Maria Cecília Marconi Pinheiro. Development of infants with a risk indicator for hearing loss associated to living enviroment. J. Hum. Growth Dev. [online]. 2017, vol.27, n.1, pp. 49-55. ISSN 0104-1282.  http://dx.doi.org/10.7322/jhgd.127652.

INTRODUCTION: Infants with a risk indicator of hearing loss (RIHL) are more likely to have delays in their development. Besides the biological risk, the infant's environment may determine the outcome of their development. OBJECTIVE: To compare the motor, cognitive and language development of infants with and without RIHL and to know the affordances of the home environment of those infants. METHODS: This was an observational research exploratory, cross-sectional and quantitative study, in which the development of 77 infants with RIHL (Study Group) were compared to 77 infants without RIHL (Compared Group). Cognition, language and motricity were evaluated according to the Bayley Scale of Infant Development, and the home environment according to the Affordability of the Home Environment for Motor Development - Baby Scale questionnaire. RESULTS: The most frequent risk indicators were family history (25.6%) and hyperbilirubinaemia (24.4%). In the Study Group, 13 (16.8%) infants presented delays in at least one domain and in the Control Group 3 (3.9%) infants presented delays. There was a statistically significant difference in the motor (p = 0.0001), cognitive (p = 0.001) and language (p = 0.0304) domains, with a better score in the Control Group. Regarding the home environment, 70.2% of houses in the Study Group were classified as less than adequate or mildly adequate, while in the Control Group this was 50.7%. CONCLUSION: The average development of the infants with risk indicators for hearing loss is below the average development of infants without them. Also, the number of environments below adequate is higher in the group with infants with risk indicators.

Keywords : infant development; risk factors; environment; hearing impairment; infants.

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