Parent’s and teacher’s evaluation of aural oral performance of children with hearing aids

Background and Aim: Parents' evaluation of aural/oral performance of children (PEACH) and teachers' evaluation of aural/oral performance of children (TEACH) questionnaires are used to assess the behaviors of hearing-impaired children in real-life situations. This study aims to compare the scores of PEACH and TEACH in children with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) using hearing aids. Methods: This is a double-blind two-period crossover study on 21 children aged 9-72 months with severe-to-profound SNHL using hearing aids. There were two 6-week periods of fitting Phonak Naida Venture SP hearing aids using the fifth version of the Desired Sensation Level (DSL v5) and the National Acoustics Laborato­ries’ nonlinear fitting procedure (NAL-NL2) pre­scriptions. At the end of each trial, the PEACH and TEACH questioners were completed through an interview with the parents and teachers, res­pectively. Results: There was a strong correlation between the PEACH and TEACH in total and subscale scores. There was no significant difference bet­ween the results of DSL v5 and the NAL-NL2 prescriptions for the total score and subscale scores of PEACH and TEACH. Conclusion: The PEACH score has a strong correlation with the TEACH score. These ques­tionnaires are useful tools for indirectly assess­ment of hearing-impaired children’s communi­cation skills. The DSL v5 and the NAL-NL2 prescriptions make no significant difference in the performance of children with severe-to-profound SNHL. Keywords: Aural oral performance; questionnaire; children; parents; hearing loss; functional performance