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16
It will be realised that young children unable to write, or those
who are just acquiring that art, have great difficulty in concentrating
upon two matters at one time—hearing and writing. Mr. Cowan's
apparatus appears in large measure to overcome that difficulty.
The apparatus consists of pictures of common objects, each mounted
separately on a tablet sliding in two vertical grooves. These tablets
are upright in frames in front of the child, and he is asked to press down
a picture if he hears the name of it spoken.
The pictures are 15 in number, mounted for convenience in three
frames, which form an arc when joined end to end. The Audiometer
gramophone plays a record speaking five pairs of names in graduated
intensities. The words for the five remaining pictures are not spoken.
These pictures are interspersed among the ten. The object of these
surplus pictures is to make sure that the child actually hears the names
of the pictures he selects.
The name words were selected at a conference held in the Department
of Applied Physiology of the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine.
The children take an interest in the test. The day before a routine
test is held the teacher in the school explains what is going to be done,
shows them a Frame and allows them to press down the tablets on which
the pictures are mounted. The earphone is also applied to accustom
the child to it. Six children can have their hearing tested at the same
time. The results of the test are read off at once. Over 100 "infants"
can be tested at a single session.
This picture Test Frame is of economic importance, for some degree
of deafness in one or both ears is not uncommon in young children.
This is usually the result of earache, otorrhoea or catarrh of the nose
extending to the pharynx, eustachian tube, and middle ear. There is
more prospect of successful treatment if a disease is treated shortly
after its onset. Catarrh, etc., can usually be easily dealt with if detected
and treated early. It is probable that many of the defects in hearing,
discovered in older children, are a continuation of defects begunearly in life.
A further advantage of the Frame test seems to be that it is reliable
and is not generally influenced by other conditions, such as nervousness,
inattention, etc. There is a general correspondence between the hearing
defects found by the hearing tests with the Cowan Frame and the Audiometer,
and the condition found in the ear on clinical examination.