Behavioral and Neural Assessments of Auditory Skill Development After Hearing Instrument Fitting in Children: Case Reports and Clinical Implications

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to comprehensively monitor the auditory skill development of children with hearing loss after hearing instrument fitting, and a battery of four assessments was proposed. Method: This battery was designed to fill the gap in speech discrimination in clinically available evaluations. The battery includes both behavioral and neural assessments. On the other hand, both tests in structured settings (sound-treated booth) and daily life were included in the battery. The four assessments include visual reinforced infant speech discrimination (VRISD), cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEP), Auditory Skills Checklist (ASC), and Parents' Evaluation of Aural/Oral Performance of Children (PEACH). Results: Two cases were reported, and their clinical implications were discussed. Conclusions: The proposed comprehensive assessment battery is suitable for evaluating children who are developmentally appropriate for visual reinforcement audiometry. More importantly, the VRISD assessment fills in the current gap, which is the discrimination stage, for the available clinical tests for assessing auditory developmental stages.