The post-auricular myogenic response: a new instrument which simplifies its detection by machine scoring.

A portable apparatus is described which can be used for routine audiometric screening in a children's clinic. The apparatus measures the postauricular myogenic response to click stimuli and the design of the machine makes for great simplicity of operation. A simple form of machine scoring is employed so that a completely objective result is obtained. Evaluating the equipment on 102 subjects produced no false positive results, but a small percentage of normally hearing adults and children failed to produce a response. The equipment was successfully evaluated in a routine audiometric screening situation on 46 babies aged 6 to 9 months.