Incidence of auditory neuropathy among the deaf school students

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine the incidence of auditory neuropathy (AN) among the deaf school students that have severe hearing loss. METHOD: All students having severe hearing loss constituting a total of 75 at Deafness school in Afyon Province of Turkey were enrolled in the study. The etiological factors about the hearing loss were determined by performing an individual file survey and by interviewing the teachers and parents. First, all the children were subjected to an otolaryngologic examination. Then, auditory brainstem response (ABR) and transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) tests were done to all students enrolled in the study. RESULTS: The ages of the children were between 6 and 17 (mean age 11.9) and 32 (42.9%) of them were girls and 43 (57.1%) were boys. Three cases (4%) were diagnosed as AN in our study, however, no risk factors were determined in two of them. A history of hearing loss following a vaccination was found in only one patient. CONCLUSION: Our data show that the incidence of AN in the children with severe hearing loss is not negligible. Therefore, our results suggest that automatic ABR should be also used with OAE as a routine application in the neonatal screening programmes, since the solely use of OAE in the neonatal screening programmes may result in the delay of the diagnosis of the children with AN.