Monitoring auditory cortical plasticity in hearing aid users with long latency auditory evoked potentials: a longitudinal study.

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare long-latency auditory evoked potentials before and after hearing aid fittings in children with sensorineural hearing loss compared with age-matched children with normal hearing.

Methods: Thirty-two subjects of both genders aged 7 to 12 years participated in this study and were divided into two groups as follows: 14 children with normal hearing were assigned to the control group (mean age 9 years and 8 months), and 18 children with mild to moderate symmetrical bilateral sensorineural hearing loss were assigned to the study group (mean age 9 years and 2 months). The children underwent tympanometry, pure tone and speech audiometry and long-latency auditory evoked potential testing with speech and tone burst stimuli.

Effect of hearing aids use on speech stimulus decoding through speech-evoked ABR.

Introduction: The electrophysiological responses obtained with the complex auditory brainstem response (cABR) provide objective measures of subcortical processing of speech and other complex stimuli. The cABR has also been used to verify the plasticity in the auditory pathway in the subcortical regions.

Objective: To compare the results of cABR obtained in children using hearing aids before and after 9 months of adaptation, as well as to compare the results of these children with those obtained in children with normal hearing.