Purpose
To verify the correlation between the electrophysiological thresholds in Auditory Evoked Potential Steady State (ASSR) and behavioral thresholds obtained with pure tone audiometry in children and adolescents with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss and steeply sloping hearing loss.
Methods
Twenty subjects from both gender aged between five and 15 years-old were evaluated and divided into the following groups: 10 subjects with steeply sloping sensorineural hearing loss and 10 subjects with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. The subjects underwent pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry (SRT and SDT), acoustic immittance measures and ASSR.
Results
In the group with steeply sloping hearing loss, the correlation was 0.68 and 0.94. In the group with severe to profound hearing loss, the correlation was 0.59 to 0.86. Mean differences between ASSR and audiometry threshold were 1.4 and 7.5 dB in the group with steeply sloping hearing loss and -0.40 e-8.5 dB in the group with severe to profound hearing loss.
Conclusion
There was a positive correlation between the electrophysiological and behavioral thresholds in children and adolescents with severe to profound hearing loss and steeply sloping hearing loss.
Evoked potentials; Auditory; Hearing; Hearing loss; Child; Adolescent