Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 31, 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
Prevalence of clinical referrals having hearing thresholds within normal limits
Sally E Hind1, Rachel Haines-Bazrafshan, Claire L Benton
1Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham, UK.
Objectives:
To document the prevalence of clinically normal air conduction thresholds (0.5-4 kHz, bilaterally, ≤20 dB HL) among children and adults in a large audiology service and to estimate the prevalence of auditory processing disorder (APD).
Design:
Over a period of one year, clinicians implemented their usual protocol and recorded a brief history for those with normal audiometry.
Study Sample:
The number of people seen by the service was 2924 children (0-16 years old) and 4757 adults (17-100 years old).
Results:
Adults and school-age children were most commonly referred by their primary care doctor for difficulties listening in noise or following a conversation, and younger children by their home health visitor for speech production problems. Children tended to be referred on to speech pathology or APD clinics whereas adults were discharged.
Conclusions:
The prevalence of normal cases was 5.1% among the children and 0.9% among all adults. For younger adults (17-60 years, n = 1025), the prevalence was 4.0%. Based on comparison with those referred with hearing loss, we estimate the prevalence of APD among children and adults, defined as listening problems despite normal audiometry, to be about 0.5-1.0% of the general population.
