Ninety-three indigenous Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian preschoolers were screened for hearing dysfunction; approximately 85 percent of the children failed the screening, which included pure-tone audiometry, tympanometry, and otoscopy. The research literature indicates that from 30 to 35% of all children experience recurring episodes of "silent" otitis media during the preschool years, with enduring hearing effects for weeks or months following each episode. The screening results noted in the present study were felt to be valid because the findings were congruent among the three screening techniques, and the children who failed the screening tended to have lower scores on tests of language skills (the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and five tests from the circus battery). The poor performance was still apparent when the children were retested 8 months after the screening. Though Hawaiian children were more likely to fail the hearing screening than non-Hawaiian children, generally no relationships between family characteristics (such as sibling-set size or income) and hearing dysfunction were found. Certain ethnic groups may be at greater risk than the general population. As a medical solution to this problem is not forthcoming, educators must take the responsibility to develop techniques that are useful in counteracting the consequences of hearing dysfunction (primarily diminished language competence), even though the effectiveness of such techniques has not been proved. (JDD)