Pure-tone auditory threshold in school children

Abstract

To determine pure-tone auditory thresholds, 197 screened children at a typical primary school in a German town (~70,000 inhabitants) were examined. All children underwent a tympanometry and an audiometry at 17 frequencies from 125 to 16 kHz. Regarding age effects, two groups (6-8 and 9-12 years) were analyzed. The cross-sectional research was supplemented by a follow-up study with 35 children of the first graders 3 years later. School children have the poorest hearing sensitivity at low frequencies (below 1 kHz) and the best sensitivity at the extended high frequencies above 8 kHz. Hearing thresholds are rising significantly with age. Through all frequencies, averaged improvements were 3.8 dB (right ear) and 3.7 dB (left ear) at the cross-sectional study and 3.7 dB (right ear) and 5.1 dB (left ear) at the longitudinal study. The overall deviation (left and right) from the standard thresholds for adults were 7.4 and 3.6 dB for the younger and older age groups, respectively. The ear canal volume (ECV) measured by tympanometric tests was at mean with 1.06 cm(3) for the 6- to 8-year age group significantly lower (p < 0.001) in comparison with 1.18 cm(3) for the 9- to 12-year age group. Also, girls had significant (p < 0.001) smaller ECV (mean 1.07 cm(3)) than boys (1.17 cm(3)). Auditory performance improves with rising age in school children.

Effects of Self-Generated Noise on Estimates of Detection Threshold in Quiet for School-Age Children and Adults

“…Many of these studies evaluated representative samples of children, irrespective of middle ear status or hearing history. However, similar effects are seen in data on otologically normal children without a history of acoustic trauma (Buren et al 1992; Haapaniemi 1996; Müller et al 2012). Two studies included otologically normal children approximately 7 years of age: Müller et al (2012) reported thresholds for 6- to 8-year-olds (n=91), and Haapaniemi (1996) reported thresholds for 6- to 9-year-olds (n=156).…”

“…Because both studies reported their results in dB HL, the child-adult difference can be inferred relative to 0 dB HL. While the thresholds reported by Müller et al (2012) are approximately 5 dB higher than those reported by Haapaniemi (1996), the slope of the child-adult difference as a function of frequency was similar. In both cases the child-adult difference dropped by about 5 dB between 250 and 4000 Hz.…”

“…A long-standing mystery in the developmental hearing literature is the finding that thresholds for detection in quiet become adult-like at younger ages for high-frequency stimuli than low-frequency stimuli (Buren et al 1992; Elliott and Katz 1980; Müller et al 2012; Schneider et al 1986; Trehub et al 1988). In one demonstration of this effect, Trehub et al (1988) compared thresholds across a wide range of listener ages, from infancy to adulthood.…”

Reversible Audiometric Threshold Changes in Children with Uncomplicated Malaria

“…Furthermore, the (slightly) better performance of subjects compared with controls at the exit audiogram is possibly due to a learning effect, most likely from repeated testing, as it has been reported that test scores of pure tone audiometry in children, improve with age or after repeated examinations [25–27]. …”

A Prevalence Study of Hearing Loss among Primary School Children in the South East of Iran

“…Due to the occurrence of secreted middle ear otitis during a critical period (when the senses are emerging and adapting to the environment), these impairments can create various disabilities in children. These disabilities can cause behavioral complications in six functional areas: mental maturity, perception, speech and speaking, cognition and general intelligence, academic achievement, and interpersonal behaviors [4, 5]. One of the other impairments is unilateral hearing loss (UHL) that, if not examined, is normally detected later because one of the ears is healthy.…”