Prevalence of cochlear dead regions in moderate to severe sensorineural hearing impaired children

ObjectivesTo investigate the overall prevalence of cochlear dead regions in children with moderate to severe sensorineural hearing impairment.MethodsThreshold-equalizing noise (or TEN) test was administered on thirty sensorineural hearing impaired children (8 girls, 22 boys), aged 5–14 years (mean ± SD  8.5 ± 2.8).ResultsClassifying by subject, 76% tested positive for cochlear dead regions in one or both ears at least at one frequency. Classifying by ears, 58.3% had dead regions at one frequency or more. Classifying by the number of frequencies were tested, 20% met the criteria for a dead region. The difference between mean absolute thresholds in two groups was statistically significant at 1000 Hz and below (p < 0.05).ConclusionThe results indicated a relatively high prevalence of dead regions in children with sensory neural hearing impairment, especially for frequencies at which the hearing loss exceeds 70 dB HL.