[A comparative study of three systems for quantifying the spike and wave index in patients with continuous spikes and waves during slow sleep].

Introduction: Continuous spikes and waves during slow sleep (CSWS) is an epileptic encephalopathy of childhood with a pattern of epileptiform discharges during sleep, which, if prolonged over time, produce severe neuropsychological impairment. Quantification of the paroxysms by means of a spike and wave index (SWI) > 85% establishes a presumptive diagnosis and allows early therapy to be started to prevent such impairment.

Aims: To compare the results of the classic method for calculating the SWI against two proposals that optimise the relation between the analysis time employed and the diagnostic sensitivity.

Acceptance noise level: effects of the speech signal, babble, and listener language.

Purpose: The acceptable noise level (ANL) measure has gained much research/clinical interest in recent years. The present study examined how the characteristics of the speech signal and the babble used in the measure may affect the ANL in listeners with different native languages.

Method: Fifteen English monolingual, 16 Russian-English bilingual, and 24 Spanish-English bilingual listeners participated.