To investigate the prevalence of binocular anomalies in deaf students and the association between deafness and ocular abnormalities in Tehran.

A team of optometrists, ophthalmologist and social worker visited one hundred fifty eight deaf students. These students in selected schools underwent detailed visual acuity testing, refraction, binocular examination, color vision and fundoscopy.

The percentage of ocular abnormalities in the deaf boys included in this study was 52.8%. The frequency of refractive errors in the present study was 39.9%. Astigmatism was the leading refractive anomaly (31%). we found that a significant relationship between refractive error and severity of the hearing loss(P<0.001) and when severity of hearing loss increased prevalence of hyperopia , astigmatism and anisometropia increased and myopia decreased. Seventy four deaf boys (46.8%) had a normal eye examination, while 84(53.2%) cases had ocular problems, and 20(12.65%) of them had more than one problem The prevalence of refractive error, amblyopia, and strabism was found to be significantly increased over the general population. In addition, the prevalence of ocular abnormalities generally increased with the severity of the hearing loss.

we recommended that Screening for ocular abnormalities should be made mandatory in hearing-impaired children as they need appropriate visual sense to compensate their poor auditory sense.