Table 1.
Expected Test Results for a Selection of Putative Locations of Common Hearing Deficits
| Test results | Middle ear | Outer hair cells | Inner hair cells | Auditory nerve | Brainstem |
| Air conduction | Ab | Ab | Ab | ambig | N |
| pure tone | |||||
| audiogram | |||||
| Bone | N | Ab | Ab | ambig | N |
| conduction | |||||
| pure tone | |||||
| audiogram | |||||
| Tympanometry | Ab | N | N | N | N |
| Middle ear | Ab | N | ambig | Ab | Ab |
| muscle | |||||
| reflexes | |||||
| Otoacoustic | Ab | Ab | ambig | N | N |
| emissions | |||||
| Auditory | N | N | Ab | Ab | Ab |
| brainstem | |||||
| response |
-
(Ab) Absent or abnormal; (N) normal or generally unaffected in morphology if residual peripheral hearing is adequate; (ambig) ranges from normal to abnormal and thus does not contribute diagnostic information.
