Auditory Brain Stem Responses to Air- and Bone-Conducted Clicks in the Audiological Assessment of At-Risk Infants

Abstract

Auditory brain stem responses [ABRs] to a i r and boneconducted clicks were used to assess the auditory status of 170 atirisk neonates. During the perinatal period, 20.6% [35/170 cases] of the at-risk infants failed ABRs to airconducted clicks at 30 dB nHL in a t least one ear. Earspecific results indicated an initial failure rate of 15.0% [51/340 ears]. Approximately twctthirds (32/51 ears] of these initial failures showed purely conductive deficits, whereas the remaining one-third [ I 9/51 ears] involved suspected sensorineural components. Follow-up audiological evaluations were performed for 87.1% ( 1 4 8 cases] of these atirisk infants at 4 mo and/or 1 yr corrected age. Based on the initial tests and followup assessments, the tentative operating characteristics of ABRs to both a i r and boneconducted clicks for identification of sensor ineural deficits in at-risk neonates were calculated. It was found that the ABR to boneconducted clicks yielded better specificity, predictive value of positive results, and overall efficiency. It is suggested that the ABR to boneconducted stimuli should be viewed as a valuable addition in the assessment of cochlear reserve in infants who fail a newborn auditory screening to airconducted stimuli.

Air-And Bone-Conduction Auditory Brainstem Response in Children with Congenital External Auditory Canal Atresia

“…Consequently, their responses to bone-conduction ABR are dissimilar. Similar with the present study, Yang et al [10], found no prolonged latencies of wave V in infants in their survey.…”

Test-retest reliability of auditory brainstem responses to chirp stimuli in newborns

“…Additionally, the CE-Chirp could prove to be effective for differential diagnosis of conductive and sensorineural hearing loss in newborns (cf. Yang et al, 1993) as ABRs were reliably recorded using both air-and bone-conducted signal deliveries.…”

Evaluation of auditory brainstem responses for hearing screening of high-risk infants

“…This may be explained on the basis of the observation that with increasing intensity levels, there is shortening of the wave latencies due to the rapid fi ring and the quicker rising of synaptic potentials and, therefore, a decreased latency of transmission. It can be hypothesized that this increase in the fi ring rate with increasing intensities in compromised babies does not equal that of normal babies [11]. Hence, though the latencies may be comparable at lower intensities due to normal cochlear function, difference occurs at the higher intensities.…”