Language-Independent Hearing Screening - Increasing the Feasibility of a Hearing Screening Self-Test at School-Entry.
Elien Van den Borre, Sam Denys, Lea Zupan and 4 others
PMID 36114643WHAT IT FOUND
A tablet self-test for school-entry children using everyday sounds detected hearing loss, but one in six could not finish reliably.
In a follow-up, the adjusted procedures had about 5% unreliable results.
Key findings
01The original sound-in-noise self-test had sensitivity and specificity of 0.80 to 0.90 for sensorineural hearing loss above 20 dB HL.
02Experiment 1 found that approximately one out of six results were unreliable, and Experiment 2 found that 5% of results were unreliable.
03The adapted reference procedure averaged 4 min 35 s, the fixed-SNR procedure 3 min 51 s, and the antiphasic procedure 3 min.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The original test produced unreliable results in about one in six results, so it was not feasible as a self-test in its first form. The adapted procedures were tested only in children without known hearing loss, so the paper does not show whether the shorter or antiphasic versions still detect hearing loss. The reduction in unreliable results from about one in six to 5% may be partly due to testing all children at home and using slightly older children, not only the test changes. Cultural and language independence was examined in only three countries, so broader international use is not proven. The antiphasic version showed a training effect and may need more practice trials before it gives stable scores. Mixed hearing loss could not be analysed separately because too few children had it. Some ears were excluded because no reliable audiogram or bone-conduction thresholds were available.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was supported by a TBM-FWO Research Foundation-Flanders grant and by Legaat Ghislaine Heylen.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the adjusted SEC is ready for routine school-entry screening. The adjusted versions were tested mainly in children without known hearing loss, and their sensitivity and specificity were not examined.