Status of school hearing conservation programs: A survey of educational models, phase I

Growing national concern prompted the Denver area audiologists to include higher frequencies in their testing protocol of middle and high school students. This revealed an alarming number of adolescents with hearing loss in the higher frequencies. The need for more hearing conservation education became apparent.; The purpose of this study was to find out how widespread hearing conservation education is in schools and to assess the types of school hearing conservation education programs that have been implemented across the United States in school districts that employ educational audiologists. An electronic survey was designed and e-mailed to 430 educational audiologists in the United States. One hundred twenty-one responses were received.; More than 90% of the respondents indicated they felt hearing conservation education is important, while only 35% said they provide it. The results of the survey leave little doubt that a large number of our students in the public schools do not have access to hearing conservation education. The findings clearly suggest a need for more direct instruction in hearing loss prevention in public schools.