Special Techniques In Testing The Hearing Of Children

Abstract

Hearing tests for infants and young children must be reasonably accurate, descriptively significant and useful. Most technics for children do not present this kind of information except in a very limited way. Since 1947, experiments have been under way to develop "ascending" technics in audiometry together with the Fere effect and a modified form of Pavlovian conditioning. A fairly short burst of a test-tone is followed in about 3 seconds by a mild faradic shock from an Inductorium. About 8 to 12 of the combined signals are necessary to set up a conditioned-reflex arc. The shock annoys but does not hurt. Over 650 tests have been done on preschool-age children with skin-resistance responses from infants as young as 3 weeks. Retest data on some of this material show a rather high degree of reliability, although there is a large spread in individual cases.