Liaqat Ali.
Assessment of hearing sensitivity in children with visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA).
Pak Paed J Jan ;29(2):83-8.

Objectives: To investigate the efficacy of visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) for hearing assessment in children. Design: Retrospective study from January 1999 to December 2001. Settings: Department of Paediatric Audiology The Children`s Hospital and the Institute of Child Health Lahore. Materials and Methods: Visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA), and auditory function test, was carried out in 1660 children and different variables were documented for analysis. Results: A total of 13816 children visited the hospital, out of which VRA was done in 1660 patients (12.02%). 1036(62.41%) were males and 624(37.59%) females. Age range was 7 months to 4 years. 712(42.89%) had normal hearing, 22(1.33%) had mild degree hearing loss, 165(9.94%) moderate degree,165(9.94%) severe degree and 596(35.90%) had profound degree hearing loss. Among the same group of 1660 patients excluding normals 91(5.48%) had conductive hearing loss,544(32.77%) had sensorineural hearing loss and 313(18.86%) mixed type hearing loss. Auditory brainstem response (ABR) was carried out in 68(4.10%) of the VRA group children only for confirming and establishing the degree of hearing impairment. Conclusion: It is concluded that visual reinforcement audiometry can be successfully and reliably used for frequency specific stimuli for estimating hearing thresholds in both normal and hearing impaired children.

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