T THERE ARE only a few reports in the literature concerning the vestibular reactivity in children that suffer from severe sensorineural impairment of hearing. Shambaugh et al 13 collected, in 1930, information about 5,348 children from schools for the deaf in the US. They found normal vestibular reactions in about 70% of the children, and this proportion was very nearly the same in both the congenital and the acquired types of deafness. Furthermore, it made little difference whether the acoustic function was totally or only partially abolished. Lindenov 11 (1945) examined 58 deaf-mutes by means of irrigation with water at a temperature of 18 C. In his series normal reactions appeared to be characteristic for inherited types of deafness, but also in acquired deafness such findings were not unusual, and he concluded that this examination was without diagnostic value for the type of hearing loss. It is interesting, however, that