NATIONAL CENTER FOR HEARING ASSESSMENT & MANAGEMENT eBook Chapter 8 • Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder • 8-1 Chapter 8 Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder

Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder (ANSD) is a term recently recommended by an expert panel in the audiology profession to describe hearing loss characterized by normal or near normal cochlear hair cell function and absent or abnormal auditory nerve function.1 Difficulty hearing in noise, fluctuating hearing, and speech perception performance not predicted by level of residual hearing have been reported (Starr et al., 1996; Rance et al., 1999). The incidence of ANSD in children with severe-profound hearing loss has been reported as 13.4 % (Sanyebhaa et al., 2009). Use of the term “neuropathy ” to describ