[ASSR] in Hearing Impaired Children With Absent [ABR] Waves

1. All infants should have access to hearing screening using a physiologic measure at no later than 1 month of age.
2. All infants who do not pass the initial hearing screening and the subsequent rescreening should have appropriate audiological and medical evaluations to confirm the presence of hearing loss at no later than 3 months of age.
3. All infants with confirmed permanent hearing loss should receive early intervention services as soon as possible after diagnosis but at no later than 6 months of age. A simplified, single point of entry into an intervention system that is appropriate for children with hearing loss is optimal.

The importance of early identification and habilitation of hearing loss for improved access to auditory stimuli and for positive prognosis of speech and language is well established in the literature . Auditory brain stem response (ABR) is the most commonlly used test in clinical practice to estimate the degree of hearing loss, but the auditory brainstem response (ABR) cannot differentiate between severe and profound SNHL [5], whereas the ASSR can provide threshold information in a frequency-specific manner at intensity levels of 120 dB and higher. This intensity stimulation advantage uniquely qualifies the ASSR for investigation of residual hearing in young and difficult-to-test cochlear implant candidates.