A comparison of screening methods in school-aged children

OBJECTIVE: We sought to compare the findings of 3 different hearing screening methods in school-aged children. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: Prospective testing of second- and third-grade students in their schools was carried out. METHODS: Three hundred children (599 ears) were screened by using 3 test modalities, pure-tone au-diometry, distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE), and tympanometry. RESULTS: All of the tests were normal in 532 ears (89%), and all were abnormal in 12 ears (2%). Tym-panometry yielded the most abnormalities (8.3%), and pure-tone testing demonstrated the fewest (3.3%), with a positive rate of 6.3 % for DPOAE test