Prevalence of cochlear dead regions in moderate to severe sensorineural hearing impaired children

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the overall prevalence of cochlear dead regions in children with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing impairment.

Methods: Threshold-equalizing noise (or TEN) test was administered on thirty sensorineural hearing impaired children (8 girls, 22 boys), aged 5-14 years (mean±SD8.5±2.8).

Results: Classifying by subject, 76% tested positive for cochlear dead regions in one or both ears at least at one frequency. Classifying by ears, 58.3% had dead regions at one frequency or more. Classifying by the number of frequencies were tested, 20% met the criteria for a dead region. The difference between mean absolute thresholds in two groups was statistically significant at 1000Hz and below (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The results indicated a relatively high prevalence of dead regions in children with sensory neural hearing impairment, especially for frequencies at which the hearing loss exceeds 70dB HL.

Keywords: Children; Dead regions; Hearing loss; Prevalence; TEN(HL) test.