The Prevalence and Causes of Auditory Neuropathy/Dys-synchrony (AN/AD) in Children with Hearing Impairment.

There are a wide variety of hearing impairments that part of it is auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony (AN/AD). So, the object of this study was determination the prevalence and causes of AN/AD in children with hearing impairment. This study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey. The sample size consisted of 105 hearing impairment children. All them were under hearing screening tests (tympanometry), distortion and transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs + TEOAE) and automated auditory brainstem response (AABR). If they were suspected to AN/AD, for complete diagnostic measurements were referred to our hospital. Four cases (8 ears) with AN/AD were diagnosed, which had an average age 37 months (SD = 8.67). So, the prevalence of AN/AD was 3.8 % among hearing impaired children. The findings of this study showed that there are the relationships between AN/AD and fluctuating hearing loss, acoustic reflex, high bilirubin, blood exchange after birth, neonatal intensive (NICU) care unit (P < 0.05). The simultaneous use of both ABR and OAE tests in the birth screening provide much more useful information than when each of these tests is used alone.