Acceptability of Hear-O as a mobile hearing screening tool

Permanent childhood hearing impairment (PCHI) can cause diminished communication skills and delay in language development causing a great disadvantage for children. Early identification of hearing impairment, by the hearing screening program, can lead to beneficial effects on language development. However, the program is not accessible for everyone in the Philippines. This study aims to implement the hearing screening test for children aged 2 years and above using Android mobile devices. The application was tested on Android devices from different manufacturers to find out if there is a significant difference among the sound level output. Ear doctors were asked to perform the hearing screening procedure using the application on themselves and assess its effectiveness and significance. The results of the experimentation on Android phones are as follows: the standard deviation for sound level output vary from 1.28 dB to 3.99 dB for 1 kHz making the difference insignificant. On a 5-level Likert scale, doctors rated the application 4.3 for ease of navigation, 3.8 for design, and 4.6 for the clarity of instructions.