Vestibular findings in the deaf and hard of hearing.

One hundred sixty-six youngsters (3 to 19 years of age) with severe-to-profound hearing impairments underwent vestibular evaluations with electronystagmography as part of a comprehensive medical and psychoeducational test battery. Twenty-two percent of the children had unilateral or bilateral labyrinthine weakness in response to caloric stimulation, and 21% demonstrated spontaneous or positional nystagmus. The tandem Romberg test was most predictive of those patients with caloric labyrinthine weakness. The performance of mental alerting tasks (using sign language when appropriate) by the patients during testing proved essential in overcoming a marked tendency toward central suppression of nystagmus.