Staten Island, New York will no longer give hearing tests to schoolchildren. The practice has been ongoing for decades. Speech experts say stopping the tests will cause some deaf students to fall through the cracks and students will fall behind in their school work. About 7% of the Staten Island students fail the hearing test each year.
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association reports that one in every 20 school-aged children may have mild hearing loss that could affect their academic work and more than one-third of them are expected to fail at least one grade at school.
