Screening
All participants underwent screening and binaural assessment by an audiologist using the following institutional protocol:Anamnesis and overall data collection as well as medical history and ontological data.Meatoscopy to determine the presence of cerumen or foreign bodies.Immittance testing with an Interacoustics® AT235h Impedance Audiometer, in order to identify the tympanometric curve and analyze ipsilateral and contralateral acoustic reflexes at frequencies of 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz.Pure-tone audiometry, which followed the American National Standards Institute (ANSI-69) guidelines, assessed the auditory thresholds at frequencies between 250 and 8000 Hz.Vocal audiometry was used to determine the Speech Percentage Recognition Index (SPRI) and Speech Recognition Threshold (SRT), followed by the presentation of twenty-five monosyllabic words at 40 dB HL, the intensity of which gradually declined until the participant understood and repeated 50 % of the words.Behavioral and electrophysiological assessments were performed using the Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR), which consists of emitting specific auditory evoked potentials at 80 dB HL with alternate polarity, to confirm the auditory pathway integrity at the brainstem level.The screening data were used to select the study participants whose data were not used to demonstrate the results.