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Updated: Aug 24, 2026
Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
Published on: January 23, 2017
Auditory steady-state responses for children with severe to profound hearing loss
DeWet Swanepoel1, René Hugo, Reinette Roode
1Department of Communication Pathology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. dswanepoel@postino.up.ac.za
Objective:
To investigate the clinical usefulness of the dichotic single-frequency auditory steady-state response (ASSR) for estimation of behavioral thresholds in children with severe to profound congenital sensorineural hearing loss.
Design:
A comparative experimental research design was selected to compare behavioral and ASSR thresholds for the sample. Behavioral pure-tone audiometry served as the criterion standard.
Setting:
Hearing Clinic, Department of Communication Pathology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
Patients:
A referred sample of 10 patients (20 ears), 5 girls and 5 boys aged 10 to 15 years (mean age, 13 years 4 months), with severe to profound sensorineural hearing impairment.
Main Outcome Measures:
The difference, and correlation, between 160 pure-tone behavioral and ASSR thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz.
Results:
Mean differences between ASSR and behavioral thresholds were 6 dB for 0.5 kHz and 4 dB for 1, 2, and 4 kHz, with standard deviations varying between 8 and 12 dB. No significant differences (P<.05) were observed between ASSR and behavioral thresholds, except at 0.5 kHz, and Pearson correlation coefficients varied between 0.58 and 0.74 across the evaluated frequencies, with best correlation at 1 kHz and worst at 0.5 kHz.
Conclusions:
The ASSR thresholds provided reliable estimations of behavioral thresholds for children with severe to profound hearing loss and indicated an increased sensitivity for more profound hearing loss.
