Bilateral hearing loss detected by a screening test at school -Some devices in the examination method-

Abstract

Four cases of bilateral hearing loss detected by screening tests at school were reported. All cases had moderate or severe hearing impairment in pure tone audiometry but had no trouble in conver sation. It was observed that they had the type V pattern in Békésy audiometry, the discrepancy between their pure tone thresholds and speech reception thresholds and the normal estimated thresholds in ABR. We tried to obtain so called true thresholds using band noise audiometry, frequent examinations in pure tone audiometry, long time presentation at one hearing level in pure tone audiometry and an original SRT measurement. We confirmed the usefulness of these methods in the diagnosis of functional hearing loss. Finally we discussed the difference between psychogenic deafness and hearing problems shown in this paper.