Common disorders and diseases of childhood / by George Frederic Still.

  • Still, G. Frederic (George Frederic), Sir, 1868-1941.
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Common disorders and diseases of childhood / by George Frederic Still. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/872 (page 15)
    Hearing is usually stated to be absent during the first two or three days, but I doubt if this is so. An infant, aged ten hours, showed no sign whatever of hearing the loud noise of beating a tin tray ; but another, aged twenty hours, showed some facial contraction suggesting that a sudden shrill whistle was heard, and more clear evidence of hearing was obtained on the second day. By the age of four weeks the infant appreciates sound sufficiently to be easily disturbed by noise. At four months old there should be no difficulty in attracting the attention by noises. The question of deafness is one which often arises in cases of delayed development of speech. Parents7 statements as to their child’s hearing are apt to be misleading : a mother will speak to her child who is sitting on her lap, to try whether he hears : she forgets that the vibration of her chest and even her breath when she speaks are readily felt by the child, and concludes that the attraction of the child’s attention is evidence of hearing : or, again, in asking the child some simple question, such as ‘ Where is Daddy ? ’, she unconsciously attracts the child’s attention by some movement of her face or eyes, or even of her hands. It is very necessary to eliminate such influences in examining a young child for deafness, the sound used should be made behind the child or out of his sight, and at such a distance that the in¬ fluence of tactile sensation can be eliminated : it is well also to engage the child’s interest with some toy or other object so that the child is not likely to look round in the direction of the noise by mere coincidence. A familiar voice, especially the mother’s, calling the child from an adjoining room, is often a satisfactory test for a child’s hearing. Mental deficiency may simulate deafness ; the mentally defec¬ tive child is often curiously stolid, taking no notice whatever of calls or commands, and yet perhaps a few minutes later showing that he hears readily when he chooses to do so. I have occasionally met with a curious condition in which the child’s behaviour was very suggestive of complete deafness, although the history showed that the child was neither deaf nor imbecile. In these cases the child, when addressed by a stranger, remained absolutely blank so far as any sign of hearing or interest went, so that, were it not for the history that when he was with members of his own family or familiar friends he both heard and talked, one might easily have supposed the child to be deaf and dumb. Such children usually show other evidence of mental peculiarity, either in backwardness of speech development, or in unnatural violence of temper, or in some other trait which marks them as ‘ odd ’ children.