Amplification Self-Adjustment: Controls and Repeatability.

Objectives: This study was a continuation of work on an explore-and-select approach to the self-adjustment of amplification. Goals were to determine (i) the effect of changing the number of adjustment controls from three to two, (ii) the effect of changing the initial adjustment from overall output to high-frequency output, (iii) individual repeatability, (iv) the effect on phoneme recognition of increasing and decreasing overall output relative to the starting and adjusted conditions, and (v) listener reactions to, and opinions of, the self-adjustment procedure.

Design: Twenty-two adults with hearing loss, 10 of whom were hearing aid users, adjusted level and spectrum of connected speech to preference, using three configurations of number and order of adjustment parameters.

Hearing Aid Self-Adjustment: Effects of Formal Speech-Perception Test and Noise.

While listening to recorded sentences with a sound-field level of 65 dB SPL, 24 adults with hearing-aid experience used the "Goldilocks" explore-and-select procedure to adjust level and spectrum of amplified speech to preference. All participants started adjustment from the same generic response. Amplification was provided by a custom-built Master Hearing Aid with online processing of microphone input.

Open Speech Platform: Democratizing Hearing Aid Research.

Hearing aids help overcome the challenges associated with hearing loss, and thus greatly benefit and improve the lives of those living with hearing-impairment. Unfortunately, there is a lack of adoption of hearing aids among those that can benefit from hearing aids. Hearing researchers and audiologists are trying to address this problem through their research.

A "Goldilocks" Approach to Hearing Aid Self-Fitting: Ear-Canal Output and Speech Intelligibility Index.

Objectives: The objective was to determine self-adjusted output response and speech intelligibility index (SII) in individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss and to measure the effects of prior hearing aid experience.

Design: Thirteen hearing aid users and 13 nonusers, with similar group-mean pure-tone thresholds, listened to prerecorded and preprocessed sentences spoken by a man. Starting with a generic level and spectrum, participants adjusted (1) overall level, (2) high-frequency boost, and (3) low-frequency cut.

A "Goldilocks" Approach to Hearing-Aid Self-Fitting: User Interactions.

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to evaluate user reactions to custom software designed for self-adjustment of amplification.

Method: "Goldilocks" software was developed to allow user exploration and selection of preferred levels of overall output, low-frequency cut, and high-frequency boost while listening to preprocessed speech. Thirteen hearing-aid users and 13 nonusers self-adjusted before and after taking a speech perception test incorporated into the software.

A Realtime, Open-Source Speech-Processing Platform for Research in Hearing Loss Compensation.

We are developing a realtime, wearable, open-source speech-processing platform (OSP) that can be configured at compile and run times by audiologists and hearing aid (HA) researchers to investigate advanced HA algorithms in lab and field studies. The goals of this contribution are to present the current system and propose areas for enhancements and extensions. We identify (i) basic and (ii) advanced features in commercial HAs and describe current signal processing libraries and reference designs to build a functional HA.

High-Frequency Distortion-Product Otoacoustic Emission Repeatability in a Patient Population.

Objectives: Distortion-product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) are repeatable over time at lower frequencies (≤8 kHz) and higher frequencies (>8 kHz) in healthy, normal-hearing subjects. The purpose of this study was to examine the repeatability of DPOAEs measured with high-frequency (HF) stimuli in a patient population. It was hypothesized that HF DPOAEs would be repeatable over four trials.

International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA) recommendations for the construction of multilingual speech tests. ICRA Working Group on Multilingual Speech Tests.

Objective: To provide guidelines for the development of two types of closed-set speech-perception tests that can be applied and interpreted in the same way across languages. The guidelines cover the digit triplet and the matrix sentence tests that are most commonly used to test speech recognition in noise. They were developed by a working group on Multilingual Speech Tests of the International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA).

The Acoustic Change Complex in Young Children with Hearing Loss: A Preliminary Study.

The acoustic change complex (ACC) is a cortical auditory evoked potential elicited in response to a change in an ongoing sound. The ACC may have promise for assessing speech perception in infants and toddlers. In this preliminary study, the ACC was elicited in adults and young children in response to changes in speech stimuli representing vowel height /u/-/a/ and vowel place /u/-/i/ contrasts.

Adapting to changed hearing: the potential role of formal training.

Changed hearing occurs when sensorineural loss is acquired or increases, when hearing aids or cochlear implants are first acquired, when hearing aids are reprogrammed, and when cochlear implants are remapped. The changes affect speech perception-a process in which decisions about a talker's language output are made on the basis of sensory and contextual evidence, using knowledge and skill. The importance of spoken communication dictates speedy and optimal adaptation to changed hearing.

Stimulus presentation strategies for eliciting the acoustic change complex: increasing efficiency.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare four strategies for stimulus presentation in terms of their efficiency when generating a speech-evoked cortical acoustic change complex (ACC) in adults and children.

Design: Ten normally hearing adults (aged 22 to 31 yrs) and nine normally hearing children (aged 6 to 9 yrs) served as participants. The ACC was elicited using a 75-dB SPL synthetic vowel containing 1000 Hz changes of second formant frequency, creating a change of perceived vowel between /u/ and /i/.

An on-line imitative test of speech-pattern contrast perception (OlimSpac): developmental effects in normally hearing children.

Purpose: The goal was to assess the effects of maturation and phonological development on performance, by normally hearing children, on an imitative test of auditory capacity (On-Line Imitative Test of Speech-Pattern Contrast Perception [OlimSpac]; Boothroyd, Eisenberg, & Martinez, 2006; Eisenberg, Martinez, & Boothroyd, 2003, 2007).

Method: Thirty-four hearing children (aged between 1;8 [years;months] and 6;7) were asked to imitate nonword utterances. Responses were evaluated by a blinded listener in an 8-alternative forced-choice task, giving information on the children's ability to convey, by imitation, information about 6 binary phonemic contrasts.

Evaluation of cellular phone technology with digital hearing aid features: effects of encoding and individualized amplification.

Purpose: To compare multichannel amplification within a cellular phone system to a standard cellular phone response.

Research Design: Three cellular phone speech-encoding strategies were evaluated: a narrow-band (3.5 kHz upper cutoff) enhanced variable-rate coder (EVRC), a narrow-band selectable mode vocoder (SMV), and a wide-band SMV (7.

The performance/intensity function: an underused resource.

The purpose of this tutorial is to demonstrate the potential value of the Performance versus Intensity (PI) function in both research and clinical settings. The PI function describes recognition probability as a function of average speech amplitude. In effect, it shows the cumulative distribution of useful speech information across the amplitude domain, as speech rises from inaudibility to full audibility.

Assessing speech pattern contrast perception in infants: early results on VRASPAC.

Objective: To assess perception of specific speech pattern contrasts in infants with normal hearing (NH) and infants with sensorineural hearing loss (HL).

Study Design: Prospective longitudinal and cross-sectional study.

Setting: Tertiary referral center.

Assessing auditory capabilities in young children.

Objective: Early detection of hearing loss in infants and toddlers has created a need for age-appropriate tests that assess auditory perceptual capabilities. This article describes a progressive test battery we have developed to evaluate phonetic contrast perception, phoneme recognition, and word recognition in children 6 months to 5 years. This battery is part of a clinical research protocol designed to track auditory development in this population.

Adult aural rehabilitation: what is it and does it work?

Adult aural rehabilitation is here defined holistically as the reduction of hearing-loss-induced deficits of function, activity, participation, and quality of life through a combination of sensory management, instruction, perceptual training, and counseling. There is a tendency for audiologists to focus on sensory management, aural rehabilitation being seen as something done by someone else after the provision of hearing aids or cochlear implants. Effective sensory management may, by itself, lead to improved activity, participation, and quality of life, but there is no guarantee that these outcomes will be automatic or optimal.

Characteristics of listening environments: benefits of binaural hearing and implications for bilateral management.

Acoustically, a room's boundaries can be thought of as dirty mirrors. By repeated reflections, these mirrors generate multiple sound images whose intensities decrease with increasing distance. The sound energy received from these images (conditioned by the inverse square law and atmospheric absorption) sums with direct sound from the source, but with delays that are directly proportional to distance.

Hearing aid accessories for adults: the remote FM microphone.

Objective: The primary goal was to determine the benefits and limitations of a remote FM microphone as a hearing aid accessory. A secondary goal was to determine the predictors of aided and FM-assisted speech perception by adults with hearing loss, in quiet and in noise, using methods derived from Articulation Index theory.

Design: Twelve adults with mild to severe hearing loss, aged 52 to 85, were fit with behind-the-ear FM hearing aids and used them for a minimum of 2 wk.

Validation of an on-line implementation of the Imitative test of Speech Pattern Contrast perception (IMSPAC).

The imitations of syllables by six children with sensorineural hearing loss were evaluated in a forced-choice procedure, providing information on the production and perception of ten phonetic contrasts. One listener responded on-line. Four listeners responded off-line, to recordings.

Postimplantation audition and educational attainment in children with prelingually acquired profound deafness.

Language and educational attainment were evaluated over a 4-year period in 8 profoundly deaf, orally trained child users of the Nucleus multichannel implant with the spectral peak (SPEAK) processor. The average age at implantation was 5.8 years.

Signal Processing for the Profoundly Deaf.

Profound deafness, defined here as a hearing loss in excess of 90 dB, is characterized by high thresholds, reduced hearing range in the intensity and frequency domains, and poor resolution in the frequency and time domains. The high thresholds call for hearing aids with unusually high gains or remote microphones that can be placed close to the signal source. The former option creates acoustic feedback problems for which digital signal processing may yet offer solutions.