Evidence on the Efficacy of Insert Earphone and Sound Field VRA with Young Infants

Abstract

Visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) with insert-earphone stimulus delivery provides a means of obtaining early ear-specific information on the auditory status of infants. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of VRA in young infants, and to compare the use of sound field and insert-earphone stimulus presentation. VRA was performed on 41 normally developing infants aged between 20 and 42 weeks. Infants were tested in the sound field (n=22) and with insert earphones (n=19). Results showed significantly more minimum response levels (MRLs) obtained with sound field testing, and with older children. Nevertheless, in the insert-earphone group, 36% of those aged 32 weeks or more gave two or more MRLs, and 25% of the infants aged 25 weeks or less gave one or more MRLs. This study provides data from developmentally normal infants which confirms the efficacy of insert-earphones as well as sound field VRA with 32-42-week-olds, with reasonable expectation of success. The data in this study also suggest that VRA could be usefully employed for younger infants aged approximately 20-26 weeks where information, although less easily obtained, may be of particular value to early diagnosis and habilitation.

Infant Air and Bone Conduction Tone Burst Auditory Brain Stem Responses for Classification of Hearing Loss and the Relationship to Behavioral Thresholds

“…Two of the infant groups tested by VRA in the Sabo et al study, 6-to 8-mo olds and 9-to 11-mo olds (both without middle ear effusion), can be compared with the current results. For younger infants (approximately 6 mo), sound field testing may be more successfully accomplished than testing under earphones (Day et al 2000). This difference is likely related to the use of insert earphones in the current study when compared with sound field testing in the Sabo et al study.…”

Audiometria de reforço visual com diferentes estímulos sonoros em crianças

“…The stimuli may be presented in a free field, through loud speakers, supra-auricular earphones, insertion phones or even through bone vibrators (Day et al, 2000;Widen et al, 2001;Sirimanna, 2001;Sininger, 2003 andDelaroche et al, 2004). M a n y s t u d i e s a b o u t t h e t y p e s o f r e i n f o r c e m e n t s u s e d i n t h e Vi s u a l Reinforcement Audiometry are published, but, in general, the authors suggest the use of animated lighted toys (Jayarajan et al, 2005) and child movies presented from DVDs (Schmida et al, 2003).…”

Comparação entre respostas auditivas de estado estável e avaliação comportamental em crianças candidatas ao implante coclear

“…[99] avaliaram mais de 3000 crianças entre 8 e 12 meses de idade e encontraram nível mínimo de respostas confiáveis em 95% delas. [100] mostraram que o uso de fones de inserção é possível já a partir dos 6 meses de idade, nem que para isso sejam necessárias várias sessões.…”