Perceptual Characterization of Children with Auditory Neuropathy

Abstract

Objective: To characterize the perceptual abilities of a group of children with auditory neuropathy (AN)-type hearing loss, correlating results on a range of psychophysical tasks with open-set speech perception performance. Design: Frequency resolution, temporal resolution and frequency discrimination ability was assessed in a group of 14 children with AN. Data also were obtained from a cohort of matched subjects with sensorineural hearing loss, and from a group of normally hearing children. Results: Frequency resolution (notched noise masking) results for the AN subjects were equivalent to those of the normal-hearing subjects reflecting the "normal" outer hair cell function that characteriz..