Summary of: Venail, F., Artaud, J. P., Blanchet, C., Uziel, A., & Mondain, M. (2015). Refining the audiological assessment in children using narrow-band CE-Chirp-evoked auditory steady state responses. International journal of audiology, 54(2), 106–113. https://doi.org/10.3109/14992027.2014.935496
The auditory steady state response (ASSR) is useful for estimating hearing threshold and relies on the ability of the auditory system to phase-lock and mimic the frequency and amplitude modulation of an external stimulus in the response. Although there is general agreement between thresholds obtained via auditory brainstem responses (ABR) and ASSR, discrepancies still exist. CE-Chirps have been successful at generating robust responses relative to tone-burst ABRs, and have been used in conjunction with ASSR in neonates and adults, albeit such applications of ASSR have not been extensively compared to thresholds obtained via ABR. The present study compares the narrow-band CE-Chirp evoked ASSR with click evoked ABR and behavioral methods of threshold estimation across 32 infants and toddlers. Results show that threshold estimation via CE-Chirp evoked ASSRs are highly correlated with those obtained via ABR and behavioral response audiometry for the frequencies of 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz, including average responses across 2 and 4 kHz, and a combined average across all frequencies. This study suggests that narrow-band CE-Chirp ASSR, as is used in the Eclipse, accurately estimates behavioral response audiometry thresholds in infants and toddlers, even at 0.5 kHz. In addition, the use of narrow-band CE-Chirps may identify steeply sloping audiometric configurations that would be missed via click-evoked ABR.
Related course: An Introduction to the CE-Chirp®
