Heart Rate Audiometry. Part II. The Relationship between Heart Rate Change Threshold and Audiometric Threshold in Hearing-Impaired Children

Abstract

Reflexive heart rate change in response to auditory stimulation was studied in a series of hearing-impaired children, in order to compare audiograms obtained by heart rate response to threshold auditory stimuli with audiograms obtained by conventional behavioral audiometry. In a group of 19 neurologically normal hearing-impaired children with stable audiograms, correspondence of results by the two methods was good. In a group of 16 neurologically impaired plus hearing-impaired children who presented with unstable audiograms, there was a discrepancy in some cases between the two methods. It is suggested that heart rate audiometry may be a useful diagnostic tool for the “difficult-to-test” child.

See also Heart Rate Audiometry. Part I in the journal Neuropädiatrie, issue 4 1973 .

Keyword

Hearing-impairment - heart rate change - audiology - diagnosis of deafness in young children