A Scoping Review of Auditory Dysfunction After Childhood Traumatic Brain Injury

The purpose of this scoping review was to gain an understanding of the evidence available on auditory dysfunction after childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI) and identify limitations, clinical implications, and future directions for speech-language pathology and audiology practice and research.

This scoping review of the literature followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines.

A total of eight articles met inclusion for this scoping review. All studies were observational studies (n = 4 with controls, n = 4 without controls). Age at injury, injury severity, time postinjury, and age at time of study varied across the included studies. Three major topics related to childhood TBI were addressed among the included studies: (a) prevalence of auditory dysfunction (n = 5), (b) functional outcomes and biological markers related to auditory processing (n = 2), and (c) clinical presentation of auditory dysfunction (n = 2).

This review highlights the particular lack of experimental evidence related to risk and protective factors and assessment and management strategies related to auditory dysfunction after childhood TBI. There is a major need for more research and research of higher rigor to be conducted with individuals who experienced a childhood TBI to support audiologists' and speech-language pathologists' evidence-based decision making to improve long-term functional outcomes for children with TBI.