Abstract

Introduction: Children with hearing impairment are at risk for delayed language development, the risk increases with increasing severity of hearing loss. However, early amplification provides better early language outcomes. Monitoring the hearing-related outcomes of children with hearing loss and fitted with suitable H. As is essential and can be accomplished both objectively and subjectively. One of the objective measures is ACC. Objectives: To study the effect of different SNRs on ACC in children who use H.As Methods: 60 Arabic speaking children using binaural H.As. Their age ranged from 6 to 12 years. Evaluation of children was performed through ACC recordings. Speech (vowel /o/) in different signal to noise ratio (SNR) was used to elicit ACC response. The replicated ACC waveforms were collected and analyzed and the aided ACC responses were compared while utilizing different SNRS. Results: ACC percent identification (%ID) was higher in favorable SNRs (+8 versus 0). Conclusion: Hearing-impaired subjects can process speech stimuli at the level of the auditory cortex when they used their H.As. ACC can be used as an objective measure for speech perception of noise at the level of auditory cortex. ACC is more preferable at higher SNRs.