Auditory Steady State Potentials and Word Recognition Scores in Normal Hearing and Hearing Impaired Individuals with SNHL

Abstract

The present study was taken up with the aim to investigate the relationship between behavioral threshold, Independent Amplitude and Frequency Modulated (IAFM ) ASSR threshold, IAFM response and word recognition scores ( WRS). Attempt was also made to find out the frequency specific ASSR response and WRS. 30 normal hearing adults and 35 hearing impaired adults of varying degrees of sensori-neural hearing loss participated in the study. In normal hearing individuals and mild hearing loss group there was no good agreement between behavioral threshold and ASSR threshold, but a good agreement was observed for the moderate and moderately severe hearing loss subjects. WRS obtained in quiet also did not show a statistically significant correlation with IAFM responses for any of the groups. But IAFM responses had a good correlation with the word recognition scores obtained in noise especially for the hearing loss population. It was also observed that ASSR response at 500 Hz predicted the performance of WRS for individuals with hearing loss.