REVIEW PAPER
OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF INFANT HEARING: ESSENTIAL FOR EARLY INTERVENTION
 
 
More details
Hide details
1
Osborne College of Audiology, Salus University, Elkins Park, PA, USA
 
2
Department of Audiology & Speech Pathology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
 
3
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA
 
 
Publication date: 2016-06-30
 
 
Corresponding author
James W. Hall III   

James W. Hall III, 66 Weeden Street, St Augustine, Florida 32084, USA, e-mail: jwhall3phd@gmail.com
 
 
J Hear Sci 2016;6(2):9-25
 
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Substantial evidence supports the benefits of early intervention in infant hearing loss. Intervention can lead to the acquisition of effective communication skills and psychosocial development. Accurate diagnosis of infant hearing loss is not possible with conventional behavioral audiometry techniques. Objective auditory procedures are invaluable in the assessment of infant hearing because they do not rely on behavioral responses to sound and are unaffected by listener variables such as cognition, motivation, and language impairment. Objective hearing procedures include aural immittance measures (tympanometry and acoustic reflexes), otoacoustic emissions (OAEs), electrocochleography (ECochG), auditory brainstem response (ABR), and the auditory steady state response (ASSR). Exclusive reliance on only one or two objective auditory measures often results in equivocal outcomes. Careful analysis of findings from a comprehensive objective auditory test battery can almost always yield a precise description of auditory status; it can often lead to accurate diagnosis of auditory dysfunction within weeks of birth. The key to meaningful analysis of findings from a test battery is the recognition of patterns associated with major auditory disorders. This is not a novel concept; it is simply the modern day version of the 40-year-old cross-check principle.
 
REFERENCES (27)
1.
American Academy of Pediatrics, Joint Committee on Infant Hearing. Year 2007 position statement: Principles and guidelines for early hearing detection and intervention programs. Pediatrics; 120: 898–921.
 
2.
Hall JW III. eHandbook of auditory evoked responses. Amazon.com, Kindle Direct Publishing, 2015 (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0145...).
 
3.
Galambos R, Hecox K. Clinical applications of the auditory brainstem response. Otolaryngol Clin North Am, 1978; 11: 709–22.
 
4.
Jerger JF, Hayes D. The cross-check principle in pediatric audiometry. Archiv Otolaryngol, 1976; 102: 614–20.
 
5.
Hall JW III. Aural immittance measures in audiology: More useful now than ever before. Hear J, 2010; 63: 15.
 
6.
Hall JW III, Swanepoel D. Objective assessment of hearing. San Diego, Plural Publishing, 2010.
 
7.
Feeney MP, Hunter LL, Kei J, Lilly DJ, Margolis RH, Nakajima HH, Neely ST et al. Consensus Statement: Eriksholm workshop on wideband absorbance measurements of the middle ear. Ear Hear, 2013; Suppl. 1.
 
8.
Jerger J, Burney P, Mauldin L, Crump B. Predicting hearing loss from the acoustic reflex. J Speech Hear Disord, 1974; 39: 11–22.
 
9.
Hall JW III, Berry GA, Olson K. Identification of serious hearing loss with acoustic reflex data: Clinical experience with some new guidelines. Scand Audiol, 1982; 11: 251–55.
 
10.
Kei J. Acoustic stapedial reflexes in healthy neonates: Normative data and test–retest reliability. J Am Acad Audiol, 2012; 23: 46–56.
 
11.
Jerger JF, Jerger S and Hall JW III. A new acoustic reflex pattern. Archiv Otolaryngol, 1979; 105: 24–28.
 
12.
Dhar S, Hall JW III. Otoacoustic emissions: Principles, procedures & protocols. San Diego: Plural Publishing, 2011.
 
13.
Kreisman BM, Bevilacqua E, Day K, Kreisman NV, Hall JW III. Preschool hearing screenings: A comparison of distortion product otoacoustic emission and pure tone protocols. J Ed Audiol, 2013; 19: 49–57.
 
14.
Hall JW III. Effective and efficient preschool hearing screening: Essential for successful early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI). Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention, 2016; 1: 1–12.
 
15.
Swanepoel D, Hall JW III. A systematic review of telehealth applications in audiology. Telemedicine and e-Health, 2010; 16: 181–200.
 
16.
Swanepoel D, Clark JL, Koekmoer D, Hall JW III, Krumm M, Ferrari DV, McPherson B et al. Telehealth in audiology: The need and potential to reach underserved communities. Int J Audiol, 2010; 49: 195–202.
 
17.
McMahon CM, Patuzzi RB, Gibson WP, Sanli H. Frequencyspecific electrocochleography indicates that presynaptic and postsynaptic mechanisms of auditory neuropathy exist. Ear Hear, 2008; 29: 314–25.
 
18.
Picton TW. Human auditory evoked potentials. San Diego: Plural Publishing, 2011.
 
19.
Jewett, DL, Williston JS. Auditory evoked far fields averaged from the scalp of humans. Brain, 1971; 4: 681–96.
 
20.
NHSP. Newborn Hearing Screening Program. “Guidance for Auditory Brainstem Response testing in babies”, 2013 http://www.thebsa.org.uk/wpcon....
 
21.
Ramkumar V, Hall JW III, Nagarajan R, Shankarnarayan VC, Kumaravelu S. Tele-ABR using a satellite connection in a mobile van for newborn hearing testing. J Telemed Telecare, 2013; 19: 233–37.
 
22.
Fobel O, Dau T. Searching for the optimal stimulus eliciting auditory brainstem responses in humans. J Acoust Soc Am, 2004; 116: 2213–22.
 
23.
Don M, Ponton C, Eggermont J, Masuda A. Auditory brainstem response (ABR) peak amplitude variability reflects individual differences in cochlear response times. J Acoust Soc Am, 1994; 96: 3476–91.
 
24.
Kristensen SGB, Elberling C. Auditory brainstem responses to level specific chirps in normal-hearing adults. J Am Acad Audiol, 2012; 23: 712–21.
 
25.
Venail F, Artaud JP, Blanchet C. Refining the audiological assessment in children using narrow band CE-chirp-evoked auditory steady state responses. Int J Audiol, 2015; 54: 106–13.
 
26.
Mühler R, Mentzel K, Verhey J. Fast hearing-threshold estimation using multiple auditory steady-state responses with narrow-band chirps and adaptive stimulus patterns. ScientificWorldJournal, 2012; 2012: 192178.
 
27.
Hall JW III. Introduction to audiology today. Boston, Pearson Educational, 2015.
 
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top