Automated hearing screening for children: A pilot study in China

Abstract

Objective: To establish the reliability and validity of an automated hearing screening test system for children. Design: Cross-sectional within a comparative study of subjects. Study sample: Subjects were 325 first-grade and second-grade children (6–10 years old) from primary schools in Shenzhen, China. Results: Using the conventional pure-tone screening test with the pass/refer criterion set as 25 dB HL, as the ʽgold standard”, the sensitivity and specificity of the automated hearing screening test was 0.63 and 0.82, respectively. No specific pattern in the failure rates was observed to relate to the students’ grade. There was no statistically significant age effect or gender effect. Conclusions: The results suggest that with further improvement in terms of its sensitivity and specificity, it may be feasible to use the automated hearing screening test system to conduct routine school hearing screenings.

Key Words::

• Automated
• hearing screening
• children

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully thank Mr Paul Lee and Mr Dick Cheung from Ximplar Limited for their technical support in software development, and Miss Zoe Chan for her participation in the data collection. This project was funded by the Health Bureau of the Longgang District, Shenzhen, People's Republic of China.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.