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OAE Test

Your ear is made up of three parts—the outer, the middle, and the inner ear. The OAE test is used to find out how well your inner ear, or cochlea, works. It measures otoacoustic emissions, or OAEs. These are sounds given off by the inner ear when responding to a sound. There are hair cells in the inner ear that respond to sound by vibrating. The vibration produces a very quiet sound that echoes back into the middle ear. This sound is the OAE that is measured.If you have normal hearing, you will produce OAEs. If your hearing loss is greater than 25–30 decibels (dB), you will not produce these very soft sounds.This test can also show if there is a blockage in your outer or middle ear. If there is a blockage, no sounds will be able to get through to the inner ear. This means that there will be no vibration or sounds that come back.

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BERA Test

BERA test measures the reaction of the parts of a child’s nervous system that affect hearing. The ABR test measures the auditory nerve’s response to sounds. It performed if a newborn or infant fails the hearing screening test given in the hospital shortly after birth, or for older children if there is a suspicion of hearing loss that was not confirmed through more conventional hearing tests.

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ASSR

The auditory steady-state response (ASSR) is an electrophysiologic reaction to fast auditory stimulation. The purpose of ASSR is to generate an estimated audiogram from which to answer questions about hearing, hearing loss, and aural rehabilitation. ASSR enables hearing care professionals to construct statistically accurate audiograms for patients who are unable or unable to take traditional behavioural tests. ASSR uses statistical techniques to establish whether or not a threshold exists.

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PTA

Pure-tone audiometry is a type of behavioural test that is used to assess hearing sensitivity. This test employs both the peripheral and cerebral auditory systems. Pure-tone thresholds (PTTs) represent the weakest sound that an individual can hear at least 50% of the time. An audiogram, which is a graph that displays intensity as a function of frequency, is used to determine hearing sensitivity.

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Aided Audiometry

This test is administered using a loudspeaker and employs several auditory stimuli such as narrow/white band nostril, warble tones, and speech stimulus (live or recorded).The test is carried out in a soundproofed or sound-treated room with a loudspeaker positioned at 45 degrees and one metre away. This test is useful in hearing aid selection, benefit from hearing aid monaurally and binaurally, candidature for cochlear implants and other implantable devices, need for programming or reprogramming, need for assistive listening devices, need for repair or change of receiver power in hearing aids.

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Audiogram

An audiogram displays the findings of a hearing test. An audiogram is a graph that depicts the quietest sounds that a person can detect at various pitches or frequencies. The softer the noises the person can hear, the closer the marks are to the top of the graph. The location of the patient's results on the audiogram indicates the degree of hearing loss. The audiogram below depicts the various degrees of hearing loss.

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Impedence

Impedance or immitance audiometry is a means of objectively assessing the function of the middle ear. Impedance audiometry calculates the sum of resistances encountered by a sound wave as it travels from the middle ear to the cochlear receptor by increasing acoustic pressure in the external ear canal.