Universal Newborn Hearing Screenings (UNHS) is mandated in a majority of the United States. Auditory neuropathy is sometimes difficult to catch right away, even with these precautions in place. Parental suspicion of a hearing loss is a trustworthy screening tool for hearing loss, too; if it is suspected, that is sufficient reason to seek a hearing evaluation from an audiologist.

In most parts of Australia, hearing screening via AABR testing is mandated, meaning that essentially all congenital (i.e., not those related to later onset degenerative disorders) auditory neuropathy cases should be diagnosed at birth.

When testing the auditory system, there really is no characteristic presentation on the audiogram.

When diagnosing someone with auditory neuropathy, there is no characteristic level of functioning either. People can present relatively little dysfunction other than problems of hearing speech in noise, or can present as completely deaf and gaining no useful information from auditory signals.

Hearing aids are sometimes prescribed, with mixed success.

Some people with auditory neuropathy obtain cochlear implants, also with mixed success.

Differential testing is most useful when there is unilateral hearing loss, and distinguishes conductive from sensorineural loss. These are conducted with a low frequency tuning fork, usually 512 Hz, and contrast measures of air and bone conducted sound transmission.

- Weber test, in which a tuning fork is touched to the midline of the forehead, localizes to the normal ear in people with unilateral sensorineural hearing loss.

- Rinne test, which tests air conduction "vs." bone conduction is positive, because both bone and air conduction are reduced equally.

- less common Bing and Schwabach variants of the Rinne test.

- absolute bone conduction (ABC) test.

"Table 1". A table comparing sensorineural to conductive hearing loss

Other, more complex, tests of auditory function are required to distinguish the different types of hearing loss. Bone conduction thresholds can differentiate sensorineural hearing loss from conductive hearing loss. Other tests, such as oto-acoustic emissions, acoustic stapedial reflexes, speech audiometry and evoked response audiometry are needed to distinguish sensory, neural and auditory processing hearing impairments.

A tympanogram is the result of a test with a tympanometer. It tests the function of the middle ear and mobility of the eardrum. It can help identify conductive hearing loss due to disease of the middle ear or eardrum from other kinds of hearing loss including SNHL.

Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) is a specific form of hearing loss defined by the presence of normal or near-normal otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) but the absence of normal middle ear reflexes and severely abnormal or completely absent auditory brainstem response (ABRs).

Individuals presenting with this recently recognised hearing loss appear to display sporadic windows of hearing and not. Very few (1 in 14) will go on to develop normal speech and language but with poor speech perception in background noise and in others, no speech perception and therefore language development is possible.

The condition was originally termed auditory neuropathy (AN) and in 2001 as Auditory Neuropathy / Auditory Dys-synchrony (AN/AD) (to include those cases where no true neuropathy was apparent). In 2008 at a meeting convened at Lake Como in Italy (Guidelines Development

Conference on the Identification and Management

of Infants with Auditory Neuropathy, International

Newborn Hearing Screening Conference, Como, Italy,

June 19–21, 2008), a group of leading authorities on the condition reached a consensus and renamed it as auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder.

The only effective way at preventing kernicterus is to lower the serum bilirubin levels either by phototherapy or exchange transfusion. Visual inspection is never sufficient; therefore, it is best to use a bilimeter or blood test to determine a baby's risk for developing kernicterus. These numbers can then be plotted on the Bhutani nomogram.

Gilbert's syndrome and G6PD deficiency occurring together especially increases the risk for kernicterus.