Probe-tube microphone measures in hearing-impaired children and adults

This study was designed to investigate the reliability of real-ear measurements of sound pressure level (SPL) and to compare these values with two coupler measures of SPL. A commercially available probe tube microphone system was used to measure real ear SPL in both children and adults. Test-retest reliability decreased as a function of frequency for both groups and, in general, was slightly poorer for the children. For both groups, coupler to real ear differences were larger for the 2 cm3 coupler than for the reduced volume coupler; however, no significant differences were observed between groups. In addition, a measure of ear canal volume was not found to be a good predictor of coupler to real ear discrepancies.