Applications of surface-recorded auditory evoked potentials for the early diagnosis of hearing loss in neonates and premature infants.

The recording of Auditory Evoked Potentials (AEPs) in adults provides a non-invasive means of assessing the auditory system at its peripheral and central levels. In neonates and premature babies, technical, methodological and physiological constraints prevent the clinician from simply extrapolating from the adult data. Those constraints are discussed. In the light of this discussion, some limits on the validity of AEP recording in very young patients are proposed.