Sedated ABR Test for Hearing???

my son had an ABR at 3 months old, but it wasn't sedated. at that time they just wanted him to be in when he was sleeping. they will stick electrodes on your baby's forhead and ears, and connect those to a machine. then they play a series of clicks in your babys ear, and it's testing to see if her brain is responding to the sounds. this way, it bypasses the middle ear incase there is something wrong or fluid blocking the way. it's a method of testing the inner ear. it's a longer test, but i'm sure it goes much easier if the baby is sedated, they just don't do it when they are only 6 months. we had to go back 2 times to get it all done because he'd wake up. it was lots of moving him to his carseat, driving him around, and then trying to get the sleeping baby hooked back up again to do the testing.

he failed all the hearing tests at the hospital and the follow up tests with the ENT, but passed his ABR. i guess his little ears just don't get along with that style of test they do when they play tones and wait for the ear to sound back.

he's gone for one behavioral test (where they put them in the sound booth and play noises to see if they respond) and we'll have to go back again at 14 months to do it again. have they tested the behavior responses yet?
i guess the nice thing about hte ABR is if there is hearing loss they can figure out to what extent there is a loss, and you can start working on accomidations for it.

good luck! let me know how it goes

I am an audiologist, and while my child has not had the test himself, I have performed many of these tests on little ones. Unless it has changed over the past couple of years (I am not currently practicing, a liquid sedative (i.e. chloral hydrate) is given to your child. THis is done at the hospital and your child will be monitored by the nurses and doctors. It also helps to try to sleep deprive her the night before. When she falls asleep, the audiologist will come up and attach three or four electrodes to her head-- one on each earlobe or behind her ears, and one or two on her head-usually the forehead and/or the very top of her head. They are attached w/ some cream and a little bit of medical tape. Insert earphones are put in her ears and then a sound kind of like a white noise will transmit through the earphones. The response from the auditory portion of the brain will be recorded. Basically the sound has to travel through the ear canal, middle ear, inner ear and cochlea and finally to the brain. When we see the response at the brainstem level, we make an assumption that the cochlea is functioning also. It's not a perfect test, because it won't test each frequency, but it will be able to present sounds even at a very soft level to each ear. hope this helps some. It will be completely painless to her, although she may not like the medicine! And she may fight sleep, but usually once they're asleep, the test takes maybe 1/2 hour. The longest part is usually waiting for the child to get to sleep. The prep of putting the electrodes on takes a few minutes. Then the nurses will wake her up and make sure everything is all good before you go home.

Hi Taylor,

My son failed his initial hearing exam, and a follow-up at about 2 wees old. It was ironic beacuse I am a teacher for Deaf and Hard of Hearing kids. He went through an ABR at maybe 4 weeks old and as the other mom said, they hooked up electrodes to his head and put earpulgs into his ears and played clicks. This is to basically see if the sensorynural part of the hearing process is effected. Being Hard of Hearing, you probably have the conductive part of the process effected, which means the part from the eardrum to where the mechanical impulses are changed into electrocal impulses. Okay, I totally just showed that I still remember what I learned in my college classes, sorry! For my little guy, we learned that he had a crooked ear canal and the first 2 tests were failed because the electrode was not inserted enough. My guess is, that they want to sedate her because moving around could effect the electrodes. I actually had the same procedure when I was in college and it really is very uneventful. I was told to just lay there and they put headphones on me and I heard the clicks. I also had electrodes hooked up to my head. I just about fell asleep as it was happening.

I always have told parents I have worked with that early intervention is the BEST thing they can do for their child. I have seen the differences between kids with the SAME kind of hearing loss when one had hearing aids and services from 6 months old, and the other not until he was 3 years old.

Good luck and let me know if there are any other questions I can help you with!
J.