Objective: Pediatric injuries result from a multifaceted process involving a range of individual, interpersonal, and environmental influences. One risk that remains poorly understood is the role of children's perception and perceptual disabilities.
Methods: Injury counts (parent-report of injuries requiring professional medical treatment over the past year) in three groups of children were compared: those without vision or hearing sensory impairments, those with deficits who use eyeglasses or hearing aids, and those with deficits who do not use aids as recommended. A national sample of 7391 5-year-olds in the National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Study was studied.
Results: Injury counts over the past year were higher among children with sensory impairments, and higher still among children with sensory impairments who did not use prescribed sensory aids.
Conclusions: Awareness of increased injury risk among children with hearing and vision impairment could help professionals protect children from injury.