Wideband acoustic immittance in children with Down syndrome: prediction of middle-ear dysfunction, conductive hearing loss and patent PE tubes.

The typically developing group was younger than the Down syndrome group, and diagnostic categories were not age-matched, because younger children with Down syndrome were hard to recruit and test reliably. The number of PE-tube surgeries and duration of tube presence varied, which may have affected hearing levels, especially in children with Down syndrome. Children who could not cooperate with audiologic testing or who had known sensorineural hearing loss or other otologic abnormalities were excluded, so the results apply only to children who could complete the battery. Some ears with conductive hearing loss had normal standard tympanometry, and 8 of 40 ears with conductive hearing loss had normal static admittance and tympanometric width. Masked bone conduction was successful in only 44% of children with Down syndrome and hearing loss and 56% of typically developing children with hearing loss, so mixed hearing loss could not be ruled out. Standard tympanometry could not be analyzed in 38% of ears with patent PE tubes because a seal could not be obtained. The study did not determine the degree of conductive hearing loss.

No author conflict-of-interest or funding declaration appears in the supplied text. The article is tagged as supported by NIH extramural funding and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Do not conclude that wideband acoustic immittance improves hearing, speech, or language outcomes. The study compared test patterns with diagnostic categories, and it did not test treatment.