Distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOEs) were recorded in a group of normally hearing subjects (29 ears) and a group of subjects whose conditions were diagnosed as sensorineural hearing loss (23 ears) to study any correlation that might exist between DPOE characteristics and hearing impairment of different configurations. Three different DPOE paradigms have been used to investigate the influence of different test parameters on the DPOE data for normal and hearing-impaired ears. All normally hearing ears demonstrated detectable DPOEs, provided that the primary tone level was above a certain value. Hearing-impaired ears produced substantially reduced DPOEs compared with normally hearing subjects when the primary frequencies f1 and f2 corresponded to the region of hearing loss. Our data also suggested that, in general, more than one f2/f1 ratio is needed to examine any particular frequency region. The DPOEs provide frequency-specific information about cochlear function, which after further development, may form a basis for a noninvasive, objective method of evaluating cochlear function.