Dataset Information

Improving speech-in-noise recognition for children with hearing loss: potential effects of language abilities, binaural summation, and head shadow.

ABSTRACT: This study examined speech recognition in noise for children with hearing loss, compared it to recognition for children with normal hearing, and examined mechanisms that might explain variance in children's abilities to recognize speech in noise.Word recognition was measured in two levels of noise, both when the speech and noise were co-located in front and when the noise came separately from one side. Four mechanisms were examined as factors possibly explaining variance: vocabulary knowledge, sensitivity to phonological structure, binaural summation, and head shadow.Participants were 113 eight-year-old children. Forty-eight had normal hearing (NH) and 65 had hearing loss: 18 with hearing aids (HAs), 19 with one cochlear implant (CI), and 28 with two CIs.Phonological sensitivity explained a significant amount of between-groups variance in speech-in-noise recognition. Little evidence of binaural summation was found. Head shadow was similar in magnitude for children with NH and with CIs, regardless of whether they wore one or two CIs. Children with HAs showed reduced head shadow effects.These outcomes suggest that in order to improve speech-in-noise recognition for children with hearing loss, intervention needs to be comprehensive, focusing on both language abilities and auditory mechanisms.

SUBMITTER: Nittrouer S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3907590 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Improving speech-in-noise recognition for children with hearing loss: potential effects of language abilities, binaural summation, and head shadow.

Nittrouer Susan S Caldwell-Tarr Amanda A Tarr Eric E Lowenstein Joanna H JH Rice Caitlin C Moberly Aaron C AC

International journal of audiology 20130801 8

<h4>Objective</h4>This study examined speech recognition in noise for children with hearing loss, compared it to recognition for children with normal hearing, and examined mechanisms that might explain variance in children's abilities to recognize speech in noise.<h4>Design</h4>Word recognition was measured in two levels of noise, both when the speech and noise were co-located in front and when the noise came separately from one side. Four mechanisms were examined as factors possibly explaining ...[more]

PMID: 23834373

Similar Datasets

Project description:Speech perception in noise is a challenging everyday task with which many listeners have difficulty. Here, we report a case in which electrical brain stimulation of implanted intracranial electrodes in the left planum temporale (PT) of a neurosurgical patient significantly and reliably improved subjective quality (up to 50%) and objective intelligibility (up to 97%) of speech in noise perception. Stimulation resulted in a selective enhancement of speech sounds compared with the background noises. The receptive fields of the PT sites whose stimulation improved speech perception were tuned to spectrally broad and rapidly changing sounds. Corticocortical evoked potential analysis revealed that the PT sites were located between the sites in Heschl's gyrus and the superior temporal gyrus. Moreover, the discriminability of speech from nonspeech sounds increased in population neural responses from Heschl's gyrus to the PT to the superior temporal gyrus sites. These findings causally implicate the PT in background noise suppression and may point to a novel potential neuroprosthetic solution to assist in the challenging task of speech perception in noise.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Speech perception in noise remains a challenging task for many individuals. Here, we present a case in which the electrical brain stimulation of intracranially implanted electrodes in the planum temporale of a neurosurgical patient significantly improved both the subjective quality (up to 50%) and objective intelligibility (up to 97%) of speech perception in noise. Stimulation resulted in a selective enhancement of speech sounds compared with the background noises. Our local and network-level functional analyses placed the planum temporale sites in between the sites in the primary auditory areas in Heschl's gyrus and nonprimary auditory areas in the superior temporal gyrus. These findings causally implicate planum temporale in acoustic scene analysis and suggest potential neuroprosthetic applications to assist hearing in noise.

Dataset Information

Improving speech-in-noise recognition for children with hearing loss: potential effects of language abilities, binaural summation, and head shadow.

Publications

Improving speech-in-noise recognition for children with hearing loss: potential effects of language abilities, binaural summation, and head shadow.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure