EVALUATION OF THE FREQUENCY FOLLOWING RESPONSE IN ITALIAN CHILDREN: A PILOT STUDY.

Background: Speech-ABR is an electrophysiological procedure that makes it possible to monitor the processing of auditory information in the subcortical region, easily and quickly, applicable even to very young subjects. So far there are no data in the literature describing the standards of normality of FFR in Italian children and adolescents. So the objective of the study was to assess the FFR in Italian children and adolescents with normal hearing. Methods: Twenty-four children and young adolescents, 12 female and 12 male, participated in the study. Their age ranged from 9 to 14 years (average 11.8 years). All subjects were Italian native speakers, right handed and with normal hearing. All subjects had normal behavioral and electrophysiological hearing thresholds. The speech-ABR recordings were acquired by a Biologic Navigator Pro (Natus, USA) with BioMark software. Results: The analysis for absolute latency of speech sounds (specifically for the syllable /da/) gave: latency (ms) (male/female) wave V (6.57/6.41), wave A (7.49/7.54), wave C (18.34/18.57), wave D (22.07/22.22), wave E (30.74/30.50), wave F (39.12/39.19), and wave O (48.06/47.88). For amplitude (µV), the responses were: (male/female) wave V (0.10/0.11), wave A (0.21/0.22), wave C (0.11/0.11), wave D (0.12/0.13), wave E (0.19/0.24), wave F (0.22/0.21), and wave O (0.18/0.09). Complex VA: Slope (male/female), 0.33/0.30; Area (male/female), 0.28/0.37. Conclusions: We found different FFR profiles in the 24 children to those reported in the literature in adult subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]