The Auditory Steady State Response (ASSR) is an objective test to evaluate the frequency-specific hearing threshold in a hearing impaired child&adult.
The ASSR test is used to determine the hearing threshold in different frequencies by an automated process completely objectively i.e., without the subject having to respond subjectively.
This is a very useful test to assess hearing status in different specific frequencies in small children and in difficult to test adults who cannot or do not respond correctly and relaibly during the hearing tests.
The click-evoked ‘BERA for threshold estimation’ test that is commonly used to determine hearing threshold objectively just gives us a broad idea of the average hearing threshold and that too mainly for the hearing in the high frequency range.
ASSR test overcomes this limitation of BERA and gives us the hearing threshold in the different frequencies.
ASSR test reports are just like that of a puretone audiometry test and the subject’s hearing threshold level can be ascertained in each of the different frequencies like 500Hz/1000Hz/2000Hz/4000Hz.
This is extremely helpful for fitting of digital hearing aids in infants and small children.