Objective: 

Blindness is a physical disability, causing the lower physical work, and leading to posture problems, orientation difficulties, depression and balance problems. We investigated the hearing duration, an index of auditory acuity, and auditory reaction time in the blind compared to controls.

Methods: 

Participants were 40 blind and 30 control children, 10 to 22 years old. To measure the duration of hearing, a device used first by Dane and Bayirli (1998) with tuning fork of 256 Hz and a digital chronometer were used. To measure auditory reaction time, New Test 2000 device and the protocol were applied. The statistical software SPSS 11.0 for Windows was used for statistical analysis.

Results: 

Auditory reaction time was higher in the blind children compared to controls, or, auditory reaction speed was lower in the blind. Also, hearing duration was lower in the blind children compared to controls. Handedness was not important.

Conclusions: 

Blindness may cause some deteriorations in perception and processing of hearing.

Reference: 

Dane, [Scedil]., & Bayirli, M. (1998) Correlations between hand preference and durations of hearing for right and left ears in young healthy subjects. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 667-672.