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SUMMARY Hearing tests were made on newborn infants who were crying spontaneously shortly before a feed was due, by vocalisation by the examiner at about 20 cm. distance from the baby's ear. Sound level was about 50 decibels and spectographic analysis showed that the main frequency was about 100c./sec. A quieting response was produced in the majority of infants and was graded into five categories according to the degree of response. If the response is one of attention mediated at cortical level, it may be important in predicting the ultimate cerebral status of the neonate.

It might on first impression seem excessive to devote even a modest volume just to a single sector of one system over the course of a few days. Justification depends on the fact that routine inspection of the eyes in current neonatal practice is embarrassingly unrewarding, yet easily capable of major improvement. Up to the present, little time seems to have been devoted to teaching the baby’s physiological responses, yet nowhere is there more truth in the paediatric precept that success is founded in a thorough knowledge of the range of normal. If the eyes happened to be well open the aims of inspection, when expressed, may for instance have been pupil size, shape and reaction to light, cataract or coloboma. Such objections are unrealistic, relatively unrewarding and almost unachievable; for instance, to take but one item, coloboma ‘prevalence figures are not available’ (Suryey of Ophthalmology, 1981) … res ipsa loquitur.