Dataset Information

Audiovisual Enhancement of Speech Perception in Noise by School-Age Children Who Are Hard of Hearing.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

The purpose of this study was to examine age- and hearing-related differences in school-age children's benefit from visual speech cues. The study addressed three questions: (1) Do age and hearing loss affect degree of audiovisual (AV) speech enhancement in school-age children? (2) Are there age- and hearing-related differences in the mechanisms underlying AV speech enhancement in school-age children? (3) What cognitive and linguistic variables predict individual differences in AV benefit among school-age children?

Design

Forty-eight children between 6 and 13 years of age (19 with mild to severe sensorineural hearing loss; 29 with normal hearing) and 14 adults with normal hearing completed measures of auditory and AV syllable detection and/or sentence recognition in a two-talker masker type and a spectrally matched noise. Children also completed standardized behavioral measures of receptive vocabulary, visuospatial working memory, and executive attention. Mixed linear modeling was used to examine effects of modality, listener group, and masker on sentence recognition accuracy and syllable detection thresholds. Pearson correlations were used to examine the relationship between individual differences in children's AV enhancement (AV-auditory-only) and age, vocabulary, working memory, executive attention, and degree of hearing loss.

Results

Significant AV enhancement was observed across all tasks, masker types, and listener groups. AV enhancement of sentence recognition was similar across maskers, but children with normal hearing exhibited less AV enhancement of sentence recognition than adults with normal hearing and children with hearing loss. AV enhancement of syllable detection was greater in the two-talker masker than the noise masker, but did not vary significantly across listener groups. Degree of hearing loss positively correlated with individual differences in AV benefit on the sentence recognition task in noise, but not on the detection task. None of the cognitive and linguistic variables correlated with individual differences in AV enhancement of syllable detection or sentence recognition.

Conclusions

Although AV benefit to syllable detection results from the use of visual speech to increase temporal expectancy, AV benefit to sentence recognition requires that an observer extracts phonetic information from the visual speech signal. The findings from this study suggest that all listener groups were equally good at using temporal cues in visual speech to detect auditory speech, but that adults with normal hearing and children with hearing loss were better than children with normal hearing at extracting phonetic information from the visual signal and/or using visual speech information to access phonetic/lexical representations in long-term memory. These results suggest that standard, auditory-only clinical speech recognition measures likely underestimate real-world speech recognition skills of children with mild to severe hearing loss.

SUBMITTER: Lalonde K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7822589 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Speech perception in background noise is difficult for many individuals, and there is considerable performance variability across listeners. The combination of physiological and behavioral measures may help to understand sources of this variability for individuals and groups and prove useful clinically with hard-to-test populations. The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) determine the effect of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signal level on cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) and sentence-level perception in older normal-hearing (ONH) and older hearing-impaired (OHI) individuals, (2) determine the effects of hearing impairment and age on CAEPs and perception, and (3) explore how well CAEPs correlate with and predict speech perception in noise.Two groups of older participants (15 ONH and 15 OHI) were tested using speech-in-noise stimuli to measure CAEPs and sentence-level perception of speech. The syllable /ba/, used to evoke CAEPs, and sentences were presented in speech-spectrum background noise at four signal levels (50, 60, 70, and 80 dB SPL) and up to seven SNRs (-10, -5, 0, 5, 15, 25, and 35 dB). These data were compared between groups to reveal the hearing impairment effect and then combined with previously published data for 15 young normal-hearing individuals to determine the aging effect.Robust effects of SNR were found for perception and CAEPs. Small but significant effects of signal level were found for perception, primarily at poor SNRs and high signal levels, and in some limited instances for CAEPs. Significant effects of age were seen for both CAEPs and perception, while hearing impairment effects were only found with perception measures. CAEPs correlate well with perception and can predict SNR50s to within 2 dB for ONH. However, prediction error is much larger for OHI and varies widely (from 6 to 12 dB) depending on the model that was used for prediction.When background noise is present, SNR dominates both perception-in-noise testing and cortical electrophysiological testing, with smaller and sometimes significant contributions from signal level. A mismatch between behavioral and electrophysiological results was found (hearing impairment effects were primarily only seen for behavioral data), illustrating the possible contributions of higher order cognitive processes on behavior. It is interesting that the hearing impairment effect size was more than five times larger than the aging effect size for CAEPs and perception. Sentence-level perception can be predicted well in normal-hearing individuals; however, additional research is needed to explore improved prediction methods for older individuals with hearing impairment.

Project description:Hearing loss in old age, which often goes untreated, has far-reaching consequences. Furthermore, reduction of cognitive abilities and dementia can also occur, which also affects quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the hearing performance of seniors without hearing complaints with respect to speech perception in noise and the ability to localize sounds. Results were tested for correlations with age and cognitive performance. The study included 40 subjects aged between 60 and 90 years (mean age: 69.3 years) with not self-reported hearing problems. The subjects were screened for dementia. Audiological tests included pure-tone audiometry and speech perception in two types of background noise (continuous and amplitude-modulated noise) which was either co-located or spatially separated (multi-source noise field, MSNF) from the target speech. Sound localization ability was assessed and hearing performance was self-evaluated by a questionnaire. Speech in noise and sound localization was compared with young normal hearing adults. Although considering themselves as hearing normal, 17 subjects had at least a mild hearing loss. There was a significant negative correlation between hearing loss and dementia screening (DemTect) score. Speech perception in noise decreased significantly with age. There were significant negative correlations between speech perception in noise and DemTect score for both spatial configurations. Mean SRTs obtained in the co-located noise condition with amplitude-modulated noise were on average 3.1 dB better than with continuous noise. This gap-listening effect was severely diminished compared to a younger normal hearing subject group. In continuous noise, spatial separation of speech and noise led to better SRTs compared to the co-located masker condition. SRTs in MSNF deteriorated in modulated noise compared to continuous noise by 2.6 dB. Highest impact of age was found for speech perception scores using noise stimuli with temporal modulation in binaural test conditions. Mean localization error was in the range of young adults. Mean amount of front/back confusions was 11.5% higher than for young adults. Speech perception tests in the presence of temporally modulated noise can serve as a screening method for early detection of hearing disorders in older adults. This allows for early prescription of hearing aids.

Project description:OBJECTIVES:(1) Measure sentence recognition in co-located and spatially separated target and masker configurations in school-aged children with unilateral hearing loss (UHL) and with normal hearing (NH). (2) Compare self-reported hearing-related quality-of-life (QoL) scores in school-aged children with UHL and NH. DESIGN:Listeners were school-aged children (6 to 12 yrs) with permanent UHL (n = 41) or NH (n = 35) and adults with NH (n = 23). Sentence reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured using Hearing In Noise Test-Children sentences in quiet and in the presence of 2-talker child babble or a speech-shaped noise masker in target/masker spatial configurations: 0/0, 0/-60, 0/+60, or 0/±60?degrees azimuth. Maskers were presented at a fixed level of 55 dBA, while the level of the target sentences varied adaptively to estimate the SRT. Hearing-related QoL was measured using the Hearing Environments and Reflection on Quality of Life (HEAR-QL-26) questionnaire for child subjects. RESULTS:As a group, subjects with unaided UHL had higher (poorer) SRTs than age-matched peers with NH in all listening conditions. Effects of age, masker type, and spatial configuration of target and masker signals were found. Spatial release from masking was significantly reduced in conditions where the masker was directed toward UHL subjects' normal-hearing ear. Hearing-related QoL scores were significantly poorer in subjects with UHL compared to those with NH. Degree of UHL, as measured by four-frequency pure-tone average, was significantly correlated with SRTs only in the two conditions where the masker was directed towards subjects' normal-hearing ear, although the unaided Speech Intelligibility Index at 65 dB SPL was significantly correlated with SRTs in four conditions, some of which directed the masker to the impaired ear or both ears. Neither pure-tone average nor unaided Speech Intelligibility Index was correlated with QoL scores. CONCLUSIONS:As a group, school-aged children with UHL showed substantial reductions in masked speech perception and hearing-related QoL, irrespective of sex, laterality of hearing loss, and degree of hearing loss. While some children demonstrated normal or near-normal performance in certain listening conditions, a disproportionate number of thresholds fell in the poorest decile of the NH data. These findings add to the growing literature challenging the past assumption that one ear is "good enough."