[Deafness in children].

Considerable progress has been achieved these last years in the field of hearing screening, diagnosis of hearing loss in children and rehabilitation methods. It is now generally accepted that every child with hearing impairment must receive intervention before six months of age. This is only possible thanks to early and systematic hearing screening. The objective screening methods--transient evoked otoacoustic emissions and automated auditory brainstem responses--have excellent specificity and sensitivity and are non invasive. They have replaced the subjective techniques which resulted in a high percentage of false negative cases. The performance of etiologic assessments has dramatically improved, thanks to advancements in genetics and imagery. The identification of deafness-causing genes has provided an insight into inner ear physiology and has permitted to clarify a great number of recessive deafness cases. Computed tomographic and magnetic resonance imaging allow much more precise information gathering about the integrity of the auditory pathway. Finally, cochlear implantation has deeply modified the social and educational prognosis of the severe or profound deaf child. In the vast majority of cases, children implanted early and who do not present associated handicaps, will succeed in communicating within the hearing world and will attend mainstream schools.