Efficacy of BAHA softband in young children with bilateral congenital aural atresia

Abstract

To retrospectively analyze the auditory and speech development of young children with bilateral congenital aural atresia after using bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) softband. From August 2010 to January 2013, a total of 12 patients aged at a range of 3 months to 6 years with bilateral aural atresia using BAHA softband were divided into under 4-year-old group (n = 7, an average age of 14 months) and over 4-year-old group (n = 5, an average age of 77 months). The air and bone auditory thresholds of the under 4-year-old group were assessed by auditory brainstem response (ABR). The Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT-MAIS) was used to evaluate early auditory development.Soundfield pure tone audiometry (PTA) was applied in the over 4-year-old group. The Standard Chinese lexical neighborhood test (LNT) was conducted to evaluate the speech discrimination scores unaided and aided for 6, 12 and 24 months. For the under 4-year-old group, the unaided air and bone conduction hearing thresholds were 70-90(73 ± 12) and 15-25(21 ± 4) dB nHL respectively.IT-MAIS score improved significantly after using softband for 6 months in comparisons with unaided situations. The average hearing threshold of patients in the over 4-year-old group was (63 ± 6) dB HL unaided versus (31 ± 4)dB HL aided. The average decline in pure-tone threshold was (32 ± 3)dB HL with BAHA softbands and LNT demonstrated improvements in the speech discrimination score. The differences of paired comparison were significant (all P < 0.05). The hearing ability of children with bilateral congenital aural atresia improves significantly after using BAHA softband. And its application at a young age can guarantee a relatively normal hearing development and avoid oral communication impairment.