Auditory brain stem response testing in infants with collapsed ear canals

Auditory brain stem response (ABR) testing can provide valuable information about hearing in neonates. However, it is subject to a number of interpretive errors, not all of which have yet been resolved. Collapsing ear canals are one of these, as this report documents. We hypothesize that the quite common incidence of canal collapse in this age group, along with other transient conductive defects, may help to explain the 1:10 and 1:20 incidences of significantly abnormal ABRs in neonatal screening.