Do blind people have better hearing levels than normal population?

Objective: To find out if there is a difference in hearing levels between normal and blind people. To answer the following questions, "Is the concept of losing one sense will improve the other senses right or wrong? If someone born blind, will he have better hearing abilities than those with a good vision?" Study design: A cross sectional study Methods: Forty male students aged between 13-22 years old from two special education schools were randomly selected to evaluate their hearing levels from Eastern district, Saudi Arabia at the period from February 2016 to April 2016. They were divided into two groups. The first group included the student with visual impairment (13 students) and total blindness (7 students) for more than 5 years. The second control group is of 20 students with normal vision. A questionnaire was answered by each one. Anyone with history of ear disease was excluded from the study. A pure tone average thresholds (PTAs) were obtained for left and right ears for the frequencies 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 8 kHz. Data were statistically evaluated using SPSS version 20. Results: Hearing levels were normal in most of the participants with mild hearing loss in 4 ears of 3 participants (5%). The difference at the hearing levels between pure tone average for both ears in the visually impaired plus totally blind subjects compared to the control group was non-significant, P value = 0.829 (> 0.05). While, there was significant difference at the hearing levels between pure tone average for both ears in the three groups (visually impaired, totally blind and normally sighted group) using ANOVA test, P value = 0.04 (< 0.05) with the lowest hearing level at the totally blind group. Conclusion: Loss of one sense does not potentiate other senses as some people believe. Blind people have the same level of hearing as normal population.