Outcome assessment alternatives for young children during the first 12 months after pediatric hearing-aid fittings

Abstract

Objective: Perform longitudinal evaluations of young children during the first 12 months after initial hearing-aid fitting. Document evidence of early prelingual auditory development (EPLAD), identify factors that affect EPLAD, and define performance milestones that can guide best practices. Design: Unblinded, prospective, within-subject, repeated-measures design. Audiological measures and measures of EPLAD were taken at baseline, 3, 6, and 12 months after hearing-aid fitting. Study sample: Subjects were 45 pediatric patients initially fitted with hearing aids between 1 and 5.5 years of age. Four groups were formed for analysis purposes based on severity of hearing loss (moderate-to-severe and profound) and initial fitting age (≤ 30 months and > 30 months). Results: All groups exhibited statistically significant increases in EPLAD within six months of hearing-aid fitting, and those with profound losses exhibited further statistically significant improvement between six and 12 months. Similar EPLAD levels were reached at 12 months regardless of severity of hearing loss. The EPLAD trajectory is similar to that following early cochlear implantation. Conclusions: Measures of EPLAD provide a means of evaluating outcomes following early pediatric hearing-aid intervention, supplementing behavioral audiological measures.

Key Words::

• Aided sound field threshold
• behavioral audiometry
• children with moderate to profound sensorineural hearing loss
• hearing aid
• infant-toddler meaningful auditory integration scale/meaningful auditory integration scale
• early prelingual auditory development
• longitudinal outcome assessment

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by Widex A/S, Denmark, Widex China, Cochlear Medical Device (Beijing) Co., Ltd., House Research Institute, Los Angeles, USA, and West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. We wish to gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the families of our pediatric subjects, who often traveled long distances to participate in the study. We would also acknowledge Qian Zhu and Lei Jin for their great efforts for this study.

Declaration of interest: None of the sponsors listed above played a role in the preparation of this article, except to review its final draft to ensure that intellectual property interests were adequately protected. Sigfrid D. Soli is a consultant to Widex A/S and to the Cochlear Medical Device (Beijing) Co., Ltd. These consulting agreements reimburse only his travel expenses to conduct research at West China Hospital. No medical writing or editorial assistance was used in the preparation of this article.