Zheng-Min Xu
Children`s Hospital of Fudan University, P.R. China
Title: Prediction of frequency-specific hearing threshold using chirp-ABR in young children
Biography
Biography: Zheng-Min Xu
Abstract
The Chirp-Stimulus generates an optimized synchronous excitation of neurons in all regions of the basilar membrane. The stimulus structure allows modification to excite predefined regions in the cochlear. However, the chirp-ABRs have been investigated in few studies involving young children with varying degrees of hearing loss. Only some researchers reported that in this study a variety of tools were used to analyze the synchronicity of ABRs evoked by chirp- and click-stimuli at 40 dB HL in 32 normal hearing subjects aged 18 to 55 years. In our recent study, we investigate the relationship chirp-ABR and behavioral visual reinforcement audiometric (VRA) hearing thresholds in a group of infants with varying degrees of sensorineural hearing loss. In particular, we examine how accurately the prediction formulae (which were based on Chirp-ABR/VRA threshold correlation data) estimated hearing threshold in order to find out if it is possible to be used as the clinical application with regard to diagnostic audiology in young children. This study demonstrates the effective implementation of chirp-ABR predicted frequency-specific thresholds, especially of low- middle-frequency. The use of a chirp-ABR testing could be higher sensitivity and accuracy than that of auditory steady-state evoked response (ASSR) for measuring frequency-specific thresholds in young children.