THE OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF TRANSIENT EVOKED OTOACOUSTIC EMISSIONS IN NEONATES

Objective: To develop a simple objective method for assessing the presence or absence of a TEOAE in recordings from neonatal ears. Design: Several simple, objective methods of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) assessment were tested against a verified subjective assessment method, using 200 neonatal TEOAEs recorded under clinical conditions. Results: Total TEOAE level did not correlate well with the subjective assessment. Total estimated signal to noise ratio correlated better with the subjective assessment. Filtering the response between 1.5 and 2.8 kHz and windowing it between 4 and 10 msec did not degrade the correlation. In a normal population of neonates the filtered, windowed estimated signal to noise ratio method miscategorized only 4.0% of the responses as having no TEOAEs. None of the population without TEOAEs were categorized as having TEOAEs by the objective test. Conclusions: An objective TEOAE assessment (based on the signal to noise ratio of a time limited midband section of the TEOAE) performed well at detecting the presence or absence of a TEOAE.