Abstract
Objective
To characterize age-related changes in wideband absorbance (WBA) among normal-hearing children aged 0–6 years through combined statistical and machine learning analyses, and to establish developmental reference patterns supporting pediatric middle-ear diagnostics.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was conducted on 579 children (1158 ears) categorized into five age groups. All participants passed age-appropriate hearing screenings. WBA was measured under both ambient pressure (AP) and tympanometric peak pressure (TPP) conditions across 16 frequencies (226–8000 Hz). Repeated-measures analysis of variance examined the effects of age, ear side, and gender, while Random Forest classifiers and principal component analysis (PCA) explored the discriminative structure and feature importance of WBA data.
Results
Neither gender nor ear side had a significantly effect on WBA patterns (p > 0.05). In constrast, Age significantly influenced WBA patterns (p
Conclusion
WBA demonstrates distinct, age-dependent acoustic characteristics that correspond to physiological maturation of the middle ear. These findings provide a quantitative reference for pediatric wideband acoustic immittance and highlight the potential of machine learning in delineating developmental auditory patterns.