Auditory development of infants with risk indicators for hearing loss

Abstract

Introduction: Audiological monitoring seeks to follow the process of hearing development and language acquisition. Hearing plays a fundamental role in the development of oral language, so early diagnosis is essential for the beginning of the intervention. Objective: To analyze the auditory development of infants who passed the neonatal hearing screening, but who had risk indicators for hearing loss in their neonatal history. Methods: A cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis was performed. In the cross-sectional analysis, infants were divided into three groups considering the corrected age: G1 at 6-9 months, G2 at 9-13 months and G3 at 13-18 months. In the longitudinal analysis, infants who attended more than once for evaluation were evaluated. These infants form the G4 group. Results: For assessment with non-verbal sounds, in G3 were found 18.6% (n=11) of indirect responses to lower location and 40.7% (n=24) of indirect responses to upper location. Regarding the recognition of verbal commands, in group G3, 30.5% (n= 8) answered to two commands. As for the longitudinal analysis, among the infants who were evaluated in two phases, the occurrence of 25% (n=5) with altered development of hearing skills was observed. Conclusion: From the analysis of the results, responses suggestive of changes in the hearing skills of infants were identified