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Updated: Jun 3, 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
AMTAS(®): automated method for testing auditory sensitivity: II. air conduction audiograms in children and adults
Robert H Margolis1, Robert Frisina, Joseph P Walton
1Department of Otolaryngology, University of Minnesota , Minneapolis, USA. margo001@umn.edu
Objective:
This study was designed to evaluate an automated pure-tone audiometric procedure (AMTAS(®)) for 4-8 year-old children, and a quality assessment method (QUALIND(®)) that predicts the accuracy of the test.
Design:
Children were tested with AMTAS and conventional manual air-conduction audiometry. A group of adults was tested for comparison.
Study Sample:
Eighty-one 4-8 year-old children and 15 adults. Most had normal hearing.
Results:
For most subjects (93% of adults and 91% of children) differences between AMTAS and manual thresholds were similar to differences that occur when two experienced audiologists test the same subjects. QUALIND detected the inaccurate audiograms with a sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 91%. When inaccurate audiograms identified by QUALIND are excluded, the accuracy of AMTAS is similar to the accuracy of manual audiometry.
Conclusions:
AMTAS produces accurate air-conduction audiograms in a high proportion of 4-8 year-old children and adults. QUALIND successfully identified most inaccurate AMTAS audiograms. The method can decrease the cost and increase efficiency and accessibility of hearing testing.
