An association between auditory responsiveness of children and duration of entertainment screen time in the early years of life.

Objective: To examine whether the responsiveness of young children to simple sounds was associated with entertainment screen time (EST), opportunities for social interaction, and social and communication skills.

Design: Parents completed a questionnaire covering, for years one and two, the number of times the child met with other children; the number of words the child spoke; and the daily amount of EST. Social, attention and communication skills were assessed.

Using a Bone-Conduction Headset to Improve Speech Discrimination in Children With Otitis Media With Effusion.

The recommended management for children with otitis media with effusion (OME) is 'watchful waiting' before considering grommet surgery. During this time speech and language, listening skills, quality of life, social skills, and outcomes of education can be jeopardized. Air-conduction (AC) hearing aids are problematic due to fluctuating AC hearing loss.

Closed-Set Speech Discrimination Tests for Assessing Young Children.

Objective: The main objective of this study is to obtain data assessing normative scores, test-retest reliability, critical differences, and the effect of age for two closed-set consonant-discrimination tests.

Design: The two tests are intended for use with children aged 2 to 8 years. The tests were evaluated using normal-hearing children within the appropriate age range.

Comparison of Different Hearing Aid Prescriptions for Children.

Objectives: To assess whether there are significant differences between speech scores for different hearing aid prescription methods, specifically DSL i/o, DSL V, and NAL-NL1, using age-appropriate closed- and open-set speech tests with young children, designed to avoid floor and ceiling effects.

Design: Participants were 44 children with moderate or severe bilateral hearing loss, 8 aged 2 to 3 years, 15 aged 4 to 5 years, and 21 aged 6 to 9 years. Children wore bilateral hearing aids fitted with each prescription method in turn in a balanced double-blind design.

Using personal response systems to assess speech perception within the classroom: an approach to determine the efficacy of sound field amplification in primary school classrooms.

Objectives: The assessment of the combined effect of classroom acoustics and sound field amplification (SFA) on children's speech perception within the "live" classroom poses a challenge to researchers. The goals of this study were to determine: (1) Whether personal response system (PRS) hand-held voting cards, together with a closed-set speech perception test (Chear Auditory Perception Test [CAPT]), provide an appropriate method for evaluating speech perception in the classroom; (2) Whether SFA provides better access to the teacher's speech than without SFA for children, taking into account vocabulary age, middle ear dysfunction or ear-canal wax, and home language.

Design: Forty-four children from two school-year groups, year 2 (aged 6 years 11 months to 7 years 10 months) and year 3 (aged 7 years 11 months to 8 years 10 months) were tested in two classrooms, using a shortened version of the four-alternative consonant discrimination section of the CAPT.

Effects of three amplification strategies on speech perception by children with severe and profound hearing loss.

Objective: Traditionally in the United Kingdom, children with severe and profound hearing loss have been fitted with linear, analog hearing aids. Fast-acting, wide-dynamic-range compression (WDRC) has been shown to give better discrimination of speech than linear amplification for moderately hearing-impaired young adults. For severe and profound hearing losses, higher compression ratios are needed.

New speech tests reveal benefit of wide-dynamic-range, fast-acting compression for consonant discrimination in children with moderate-to-profound hearing loss.

Fast-acting, wide-dynamic-range compression (WDRC) has been shown to give better discrimination of soft speech and shouted speech than linear amplification for moderately hearing-impaired young adults. For severe and profound hearing losses, higher compression ratios are needed. The resultant distortion of the temporal envelope and reduced modulation depth may offset improvements in audibility offered by WDRC.