What Are the Different Types of Auditory Disorder?

Hearing impairment, also called hearing impairment, refers to a complete or partial reduction in the ability to sense or understand sound. [1] Hearing impairment can be caused by various biological and environmental factors, and organisms capable of understanding sounds have the opportunity to develop the disease. Deafness is often called deafness.

Hearing impairment

Hearing impairment, also called hearing impairment, refers to a complete or partial reduction in the ability to sense or understand sound. [1] Hearing impairment can be caused by various biological and environmental factors, and organisms capable of understanding sounds have the opportunity to develop the disease. Deafness is often called deafness.

Hearing Impairment Definition

Sound waves have different amplitudes and frequencies. Amplitude is the peak pressure change of sound waves; frequency is the number of periodic changes of sound waves per second. Compared with similar creatures, if a creature loses the ability to sense sounds at certain frequencies or cannot hear lower amplitude sounds, it may indicate that the creature is suffering from hearing impairment.

Causes of hearing impairment

Due to congenital or acquired causes, the structural defects of the hearing organs, or partial or complete impairment of their functions, make it difficult to hear or recognize sound. Most of the hearing defects are acquired conductive hearing loss, and otitis media and its sequelae. related. Almost all children have experienced mild to moderate, intermittent or persistent hearing loss caused by otitis media. Repeated attacks or severe infections can cause permanent defects. The most susceptible to otitis media are children with craniofacial abnormalities (such as cleft palate), immunodeficiency (such as infants with transient hypogammaglobulinemia), and exposure to environmental risk factors (such as inhalation, daycare). Boys are more susceptible to otitis media than girls.

Hearing impairment diagnosis

^[1] Normal hearing tests require a subjective response to the sounds heard, but are not suitable for very young children, as this method requires the cooperation of the child. Here are some of the hearing test methods for children.

Middle ear impedance and sound reflection test

Check the middle ear condition of infants and young children.

Otoacoustic emission (OAE)

This test can be completed quickly without the active cooperation of children, so it is often used for neonatal audiometry. If you want to know the activity of hair cells when the inner ear is acoustically stimulated, you need to test when the child is quiet or asleep.

Brainstem evoked potential (ABR)

This test is based on sound stimulation to detect brain waves, and does not require children's active cooperation. But longer than the otoacoustic emission test. The test results are very useful for children with optional hearing aids. Because this test takes a long time, it is best to test it while your child is sleeping. Brainstem evoked potential is a more accurate listening method. The patient is painless during the test and is not affected by the patient's subjective will and consciousness, but needs to be completely relaxed. It can also be performed under sleep, anesthesia or coma. Subjects' age, gender, body temperature, medication, mental state, test environment, filtering range, and electrode location all affected ABR.

Multi-frequency steady-state evoked potential (ASSR)

This test is an objective hearing test method with frequency characteristics, which is gradually being promoted and applied in recent years. Clinically applied at the same time as auditory brainstem evoked potentials, it provides a direct basis for early diagnosis of deafness and early hearing compensation. Generally, in 95% of the cases, the difference between the infant hearing threshold predicted by ASSR and the behavioral listening threshold is within 20dB. The more severe the hearing infants, the closer the ASSR threshold is to the behavioral audiogram. Multiple studies have demonstrated that ASSR can accurately test hearing in young infants and young children, while increasing the accuracy of hearing aids for infants and young children.

Behavioral Hearing Test (BOA)

Hearing can be checked for toddlers from 6 months to 3 years.