EAR and HEARING

McKearney R.M., Bell S.L., Chesnaye M.A., Simpson D.M.

Childhood hearing loss can affect speech development, performance at school, and development of social skills. In the UK, all children are offered hearing screening at birth. Around 16,000 babies each year do not pass the screening test and go on to have a further test known as the auditory brainstem response (ABR) for in-depth evaluation of their hearing. However, interpreting ABR results can be challenging, even for experienced clinicians. This study explores whether artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to improve detection of the ABR and shows that AI techniques perform better than existing ABR analysis methods.