Azerbaijan is another country where the team of the World Hearing Center of the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing conducted pilot hearing examinations in early-graders. These pilot examinations are a part on an international program initiated by Prof. Henryk Skarżyński aimed at introducing hearing, as well as sight and speech, screening programs for school-age children. This initiative encompasses already many European countries, as well as these outside Europe, like Tajikistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and now Azerbaijan.
On October 29-30, in the large primary school in Baku, hearing screening was performed in almost 250 children in two age-groups: larger one included children 7-8 y.o., smaller – 12-13 y.o.. Age groups are selected following the strategy of the Institute to assure comparability of data collected all over the world and allow evaluating the incidence of hearing loss in children in the same age globally. Hitherto amassed data from many countries demonstrate that in all countries it is needful to test hearing of school-children, because many of them have hearing disorders which may have negatively influence their learning progress and relations with peers. Early detection of disorder and implementation of treatment is therefore crucial.
In the whole group of children examined in Baku, almost 20% have been found to have some hearing problem, and 16% should undergo detailed hearing examination.