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2. As regards chronic infection this is, of course, more difficult to assess,
and many enquiries may have to be made into what has been happening over a
prolonged period. Frequent attacks of tonsillitis which have never properly
cleared up; persistent earache or discharge; persistent running nose, or sinus
infection and frequent chest trouble, may all point to the need in certain cases
for the tonsils and adenoids to be removed.
Question:—Do surgeons always remove both tonsils and adenoids
together?
Answer:—Tonsils and adenoids are usually associated together in people's
speech and thought, and when they are thought of it is generally with the view of
getting rid of them.
Generally speaking, whenever the tonsils are removed the adenoids, if enlarged,
are also included, but it occasionally happens in very young children that the
adenoids alone may be causing trouble, in which case they only need be taken away.
HEARING
Question:—What is "Mass Audiometry" and is it necessary in
schools?
Answer:—Audiometry is the measurement of hearing, and Mass Audiometry
is the application of hearing tests to a whole class at one time.
What happens is that the children in the class are each given a one-sided
earphone; this is connected to a gramophone record; the gramophone record
recites a series of numbers decreasing in loudness, and the children copy down
these numbers on a piece of paper so long as they can hear them and so long as their
interest is maintained. First the hearing in one ear is tested, and then the hearing
in the other.
There is a strong movement these days to try and introduce this group testing
into schools generally. The idea is that deaf children who might otherwise be
missed will thus be picked out.
I know this is an age of Gallup polls, investigations and surveys, but I do
still feel that with regard to Group Hearing Tests a case has not yet been made out.
As at present advised, however, I believe that a more practical approach
is being made to this investigation, and perhaps
in a year or two we may be able to speak more
authoritatively on the matter.
Meanwhile I am happy to say that by means of
School Medical Inspections, where every child's
hearing is tested, and having regard to the fact it is
my experience that teachers in Barking are very
wide-awake to every possibility of defects interfering with a child's progress at
school, the parents of school children in Barking need have little hesitation in
deciding there are few, if any, children at school with defects of hearing sufficiently
bad to influence their education, that have not been detected.
Hearing defects found at
school medical and other
special inspections
51
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