Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions’ study in children with risk indicators for hearing loss

Abstract

The hearing losses in children may result from risk indicators during the pregnancy or childhood. The audiological diagnosis made in the first year of life allows a favorable prognosis for the child’s global development, as it enables an intervention yet in the critical period of the nervous central system’s maturation and functional plasticity. This research aimed at verifying the presence of otoacoustic emissions (OAE) in children with risk indicators for hearing loss, emphasizing the importance of the hearing loss detection and identification in children that were not tested up to the age of five years old. The hearing loss indicators were referred by the mothers and, afterwards, distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) tests were applied in 22 children with normal tympanometrical curves at the NAMI Audiology Sector of Fortaleza University (UNIFOR). The DPOAE showed to be absent in nine of them. Also, there were absence of emissions in 66% of the children that had taken ototoxic medicines and in 75% of the preterm infants. Two children that had as indicator only heredity, showed DPOAE absences. The hearing loss risk indicators registered in great frequency were: labor complications, trauma in the gestational period, the use of medicine by the mothers during pregnancy, neonatal anoxia, the permanence in incubator, preterm and postterm deliveries, repetitive otitis, the use of ototoxic medicines by the children, suppurative otitis, heredity and cranial traumatisms. It is concluded that there was a relationship between the risk indicators for hearing loss and the results found in the DPOAE register by answering “absence”.