Auditory Evoked Responses in Normal Hearing Adults and Children Before and During Sedation

Averaged evoked responses (AER) to auditory stimuli presented to young children and adults were compared between awake and induced sleep conditions. Eight adults and twenty preschool children with normal hearing were tested before and during sedation at two suprathreshold levels with tone pips centered at 510, 1020, and 2040 Hz. Responses obtained during sedation assumed a distinctly different wave complex than those obtained under the awake condition. The P2 peak that is most prominent in the AERs obtained from awake subjects was diminished considerably under sedation and P3 became the prominent peak. Moreover, the P3 peaks in the AERs obtained under sedation were of considerably greater amplitude than the P2 peaks obtained in the awake condition. In all cases where responses were obtained from awake subjects, greater amplitude responses were obtained during sedation. The use of sedation with the preschool children proved to be most important in obtaining more detectable responses and permitting evoked potential audiometry with otherwise unmanageable children.