Incidence of hearing loss in high risk and intensive care nursery infants.

The incidence of hearing impairment in high risk infants is summarized for five programs which use brainstem electric response audiometry (BERA) to detect hearing loss in this population. Programs are compared with respect to the following variables which may affect reported incidence figures: population characteristics, stimulus and recording parameters, criteria for failure on the initial BERA test, and follow-up protocols. Between 10-30% of these infants fail an initial BERA test, with initial failure rate largely dependent on the failure criteria used. Approximately 10% will continue to show some degree of hearing impairment on follow-up tests at 2-5 months of age. Between 2-4% will have a moderate to profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss requiring amplification and habilitation.