Validity of hand-held systems for otoacoustic emissions in hearing screening

Hearing screening objective is the development of an universal screening. With that purpose, new hand-held system of Otoaccoustic Emissions have been designed, which are easier to perform and to interpret the results, to detect hearing loss disordersas soon as possible. To validate the hand-held systems of Otoaccoustic Emissions in the hearing screening, we have compared the results of the tests with Otoaccoustic Emissions clinic systems and tonal audiometry in two groups of population: new-borns and hearing-loss adults aged between 16 and 56. Our study showed that the hearing screening results in children with hand-held system were similar to classic Otoaccoustic Emissions system, but there were more than 40% of adult hearing losses not detected with this system. These results can invalidate the test.