Correlation between ABR and ASSR in Children with Severe to Profound Hearing Loss: A Study of 153 Cases

This study evaluates the correlation between Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) and Auditory Steady-State Response (ASSR) thresholds in children with severe to profound hearing loss, aiming to verify the clinical reliability of ASSR as a complementary diagnostic method. Conducted as a retrospective analysis over a four-year period from January 2022 to November 2025, the investigation included a cohort of 153 children with a mean age of 41.8 months. The analysis revealed a significant high correlation between the two electrophysiological techniques, yielding a Pearson coefficient of r = 0.94 in the 2000–4000 Hz frequency range. Although ASSR demonstrated a moderate tendency to overestimate thresholds by 5 to 10 dB compared to ABR, a strong concordance was established between ASSR and behavioral audiometry across all tested frequencies. Consequently, these findings confirm that ASSR is a reliable and reproducible tool that effectively complements ABR, particularly by providing crucial low-frequency data necessary for optimizing hearing aid fitting and cochlear implant indications.