| Category | Hearing Test |
1. Pure Tone Audiometry
Pure tone audiometry (PTA) is the key hearing test used to identify hearing threshold levels of an individual, enabling determination of the degree, type, and configuration of a hearing loss and thus providing a basis for diagnosis and management.
PTA is a subjective, behavioral measurement of a hearing threshold, as it relies on patient responses to pure tone stimuli. Therefore, PTA is only used on adults and children old enough to cooperate with the test procedure.
2. Speech Audiometry
Speech audiometry assesses a patient’s auditory ability using words, which are much more representative of everyday listening experience than pure tones. Measuring the ability to perceive speech gives the clinician a clearer picture of the patient’s functional hearing ability and is extremely valuable to predict a patient’s success with hearing aids.
3. Play Audiometry
Conditioned play audiometry (CPA) or simply play audiometry allows an audiologist to test the hearing of very young toddlers and preschoolers. CPA uses behavioral conditioning to get kids to respond to sounds. It is designed for children between 2 and 5 years of age.
4. Aided Audiometry
Along with representing your levels of hearing loss, an audiogram can also show where your hearing lies when wearing your hearing technology. The levels of hearing that you achieve when wearing hearing aids, cochlear implants, or bone conducting hearing implants are called aided thresholds.
5. Behavioral Observational Audiometry (BOA)
Behavioral observation audiometry is a test performed in children under 3 years of age, non-cooperating children, children with disabilities, with a diagnosis of autism or CP. The test is performed in order to evaluate the response of the auditory child when choosing a hearing aid or to assess the benefits of the hearing aid or the cochlear implant. As the name suggests is based on the study of behavioral and involuntary reflexes of the child.
6. Middle Ear Assessment (Tympanometry)
Tympanometry provides useful quantitative information about the presence of fluid in the middle ear, mobility of the middle ear system, and ear canal volume. Its use has been recommended in conjunction with more qualitative information (e.g., history, appearance, and mobility of the tympanic membrane) in the evaluation of otitis media with effusion and to a lesser extent in acute otitis media. It also can provide useful information about the potency of tympanostomy tubes.
7. Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry (BERA)
Brainstem Evoked Response Audiometry (BERA) is an objective test to understand the transmission of electrical waves from the VIIIth cranial nerve to the brainstem, in response to click sounds given through the ear. The procedure is also called Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR), Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potential (BAEP), Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response (BAER), and Evoked Response Audiometry (ERA).
8. Audiometry Steady-State Response (ASSR)
ASSR allows the hearing care professional to create statistically valid audiograms for those unable or unwilling to participate in traditional behavioral hearing tests. ASSR relies on statistical measures to determine if and when a threshold is present. It determines the degree of Hearing Loss Present.
9. OAE
The primary purpose of otoacoustic emission (OAE) tests is to determine cochlear status, specifically hair cell function. This information can be used to (1) screen hearing (particularly in neonates, infants, or individuals with developmental disabilities), (2) partially estimate hearing sensitivity within a limited range, (3) differentiate between the sensory and neural components of sensorineural hearing loss, and (4) test for functional (feigned) hearing loss. The information can be obtained from patients who are sleeping or even comatose because no behavioral response is required.
