Rh Child: Deaf Or ‘Aphasic’? *

Abstract

Studies of Rh deafness by otologists and audiologists at Children''s Hospital, Los Angeles, show that Rh incompatibilities cannot only produce kernicteric, cochlear, and nuclear, but other icteric lesions. Damage seems to be produced by cellular anoxia and lesions are fairly haphazard and widespread. A variety of audiometric pictures are seen: simple, stable losses of hearing; complex types of greater degree with involvement of the central vestibular nuclei, and neural auditory pathway in thalamic and sub-cortical regions with many of the characteristics of aphasia. Shifting thresholds may be the result of neurological lesions in the recticular substance. Employment of PGSR technique shows fluctuations and erratic responses. Neurological deafness must be considered not only as damage to a simple afferent pathway, but to an efferent pathway also.