Marcoux Andre M
Department of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, University of Ottawa, 451 Smyth Rd., Ottawa, Ontario, K1H 8M5, Canada.
Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol. 2011 Feb;75(2):163-70. doi: 10.1016/j.ijporl.2010.10.027. Epub 2010 Dec 3.
The objective of this study was to quantify the maturation of the Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) at discrete periods during infancy and to provide a means to appropriately estimate hearing thresholds when the ABR is immature.
A longitudinal study was designed to measure the in situ ABR thresholds of infants using air-conduction tone bursts of 500, 2000 and 4000Hz. Thresholds were measured using an eardrum-level microphone to eliminate the bias related to coupler-referenced scales such as the dB nHL scale used for adult assessments.
The study found that the in situ thresholds of a sample of normally developing infants decreased significantly during the first 6 months of life. A comparison of these in situ thresholds with those of normal-hearing adults revealed that the ABR response reached maturity in these infants between 4 and 6 months of age for the frequencies 500 and 2000Hz but remained immature, or elevated, at 6 months of age for 4000Hz.
The maturation of the ABR should be considered during the estimation of an infant's audiogram and subsequent diagnosis.
本研究的目的是量化婴儿期不同阶段听觉脑干反应（ABR）的成熟度，并提供一种在ABR未成熟时适当估计听力阈值的方法。
设计了一项纵向研究，使用500、2000和4000Hz的气导短纯音来测量婴儿的原位ABR阈值。使用鼓膜水平麦克风测量阈值，以消除与耦合器参考量表（如用于成人评估的dB nHL量表）相关的偏差。
研究发现，正常发育婴儿样本的原位阈值在生命的前6个月内显著下降。将这些原位阈值与听力正常的成年人的阈值进行比较后发现，对于500和2000Hz的频率，这些婴儿的ABR反应在4至6个月大时达到成熟，但对于4000Hz，在6个月大时仍未成熟或升高。
在估计婴儿听力图和后续诊断时，应考虑ABR的成熟度。
