Effect of masks on speech intelligibility in auralized classrooms.

This study explored the effects of wearing face masks on classroom communication. The effects of three different types of face masks (fabric, surgical, and N95 masks) on speech intelligibility (SI) presented to college students in auralized classrooms were evaluated. To simulate realistic classroom conditions, speech stimuli were presented in the presence of speech-shaped noise with a signal-to-noise ratio of +3 dB under two different reverberation times (0.

Performance variability on perceptual discrimination tasks in profoundly deaf adults with cochlear implants.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate performance on two challenging listening tasks, talker and regional accent discrimination, and to assess variables that could have affected the outcomes.

Study Design: A prospective study using 35 adults with one cochlear implant (CI) or a CI and a contralateral hearing aid (bimodal hearing) was conducted. Adults completed talker and regional accent discrimination tasks.

Longitudinal performance of spoken word perception in Mandarin pediatric cochlear implant users.

Objective: The objective of the present study was to investigate the longitudinal performance on open-set word perception in Mandarin children with cochlear implants (CIs).

Methods: Prospective cohort study. One hundred and five prelingually deaf children implanted with CIs participated in the study.

Assessing spoken word recognition in children who are deaf or hard of hearing: a translational approach.

Under natural conditions, listeners use both auditory and visual speech cues to extract meaning from speech signals containing many sources of variability. However, traditional clinical tests of spoken word recognition routinely employ isolated words or sentences produced by a single talker in an auditory-only presentation format. The more central cognitive processes used during multimodal integration, perceptual normalization, and lexical discrimination that may contribute to individual variation in spoken word recognition performance are not assessed in conventional tests of this kind.

Talker-identification training using simulations of binaurally combined electric and acoustic hearing: generalization to speech and emotion recognition.

Understanding speech in background noise, talker identification, and vocal emotion recognition are challenging for cochlear implant (CI) users due to poor spectral resolution and limited pitch cues with the CI. Recent studies have shown that bimodal CI users, that is, those CI users who wear a hearing aid (HA) in their non-implanted ear, receive benefit for understanding speech both in quiet and in noise. This study compared the efficacy of talker-identification training in two groups of young normal-hearing adults, listening to either acoustic simulations of unilateral CI or bimodal (CI+HA) hearing.

Lexical effects on spoken word recognition performance among Mandarin-speaking children with normal hearing and cochlear implants.

Objective: This investigation aimed to examine the effects of word frequency and lexical neighborhood density on spoken word recognition of monosyllables and disyllables in Mandarin by normal hearing children and children with cochlear implants. The lexical characteristics were incorporated from the Neighborhood Activation Model (NAM), which suggests that words in the mental lexicon are organized into similarity neighborhoods. The difficulty of a listener's task is affected by the frequency of the target word and the density of the lexical neighbors from which that word must be identified.

Assessing multimodal spoken word-in-sentence recognition in children with normal hearing and children with cochlear implants.

Purpose: To examine multimodal spoken word-in-sentence recognition in children.

Method: Two experiments were undertaken. In Experiment 1, the youngest age with which the multimodal sentence recognition materials could be used was evaluated.

Lexical effects on spoken-word recognition in children with normal hearing.

Objectives: This study is the first in a series designed to develop and norm new theoretically motivated sentence tests for children. The purpose was to examine the independent contributions of word frequency (i.e.

Using early language outcomes to predict later language ability in children with cochlear implants.

The increased access to sound that cochlear implants have provided to profoundly deaf children has allowed them to develop English speech and language skills more successfully than using hearing aids alone. The purpose of this study was to determine how well early postimplant language skills were able to predict later language ability. Thirty children who received a cochlear implant between the years 1991 and 2000 were study participants.

Language skills of profoundly deaf children who received cochlear implants under 12 months of age: a preliminary study.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that children who receive a cochlear implant below the age of 2 years obtain higher mean receptive and expressive language scores than children implanted over the age of 2 years.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the receptive and expressive language skills of children who received a cochlear implant before 1 year of age to the language skills of children who received an implant between 1 and 3 years of age.

Subjects And Methods: Standardized language measures, the Reynell Developmental Language Scale (RDLS) and the Preschool Language Scale (PLS), were used to assess the receptive and expressive language skills of 91 children who received an implant before their third birthday.

Audiovisual Spoken Word Recognition by Children with Cochlear Implants.

This study examined how prelingually deafened children with cochlear implants combine visual information from lipreading with auditory cues in an open-set speech perception task. A secondary aim was to examine lexical effects on the recognition of words in isolation and in sentences. Fifteen children with cochlear implants served as participants in this study.

Pediatric cochlear implantation in Taiwan: long-term communication outcomes.

Objectives/hypothesis: Cochlear implantation is an established method of auditory rehabilitation for severely and profoundly hearing impaired individuals. Although numerous studies have examined communication outcomes in pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients, data concerning the benefits of cochlear implantation in children who speak Mandarin Chinese are lacking. This study examined communication outcomes in 29 Mandarin-speaking children implanted at Chung Gung Memorial Hospital.

Audiovisual speech perception in elderly cochlear implant recipients.

Objectives/hypothesis: This study examined the speech perception skills of a younger and older group of cochlear implant recipients to determine the benefit that auditory and visual information provides for speech understanding.

Study Design: Retrospective review.

Methods: Pre- and postimplantation speech perception scores from the Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant (CNC), the Hearing In Noise sentence Test (HINT), and the City University of New York (CUNY) tests were analyzed for 34 postlingually deafened adult cochlear implant recipients.

Spoken word recognition development in children with residual hearing using cochlear implants and hearing AIDS in opposite ears.

Objective: With broadening candidacy criteria for cochlear implantation, a greater number of pediatric candidates have usable residual hearing in their nonimplanted ears. This population potentially stands to benefit from continued use of conventional amplification in their nonimplanted ears. The purposes of this investigation were to evaluate whether children with residual hearing in their nonimplanted ears benefit from bilateral use of cochlear implants and hearing aids and to investigate the time course of adaptation to combined use of the devices together.

Influence of voice similarity on talker discrimination in children with normal hearing and children with cochlear implants.

The perception of voice similarity was examined in 5-year-old children with normal hearing sensitivity and in pediatric cochlear implant users, 5-12 years of age. Recorded sentences were manipulated to form a continuum of similar-sounding voices. An adaptive procedure was then used to determine how acoustically different, in terms of average fundamental and formant frequencies, 2 sentences needed to be for a child to categorize the sentences as spoken by 2 different talkers.

Speech and language development in cognitively delayed children with cochlear implants.

Objective: The primary goals of this investigation were to examine the speech and language development of deaf children with cochlear implants and mild cognitive delay and to compare their gains with those of children with cochlear implants who do not have this additional impairment.

Design: We retrospectively examined the speech and language development of 69 children with pre-lingual deafness. The experimental group consisted of 19 children with cognitive delays and no other disabilities (mean age at implantation = 38 months).

Word Learning in Children Following Cochlear Implantation.

An experimental procedure was developed to investigate word-learning skills of children who use cochlear implants (CIs). Using interactive play scenarios, 2- to 5-year olds were presented with sets of objects (Beanie Baby stuffed animals) and words for their names that corresponded to salient perceptual attributes (e.g.

Communication abilities of children with aided residual hearing: comparison with cochlear implant users.

Objective: To compare the communication outcomes between children with aided residual hearing and children with cochlear implants.

Design: Measures of speech recognition and language were administered to pediatric hearing aid users and cochlear implant users followed up longitudinally as part of an ongoing investigation on cochlear implant outcomes. The speech recognition measures included the Lexical Neighborhood Test, Phonetically Balanced-Kindergarten Word Lists, and the Hearing in Noise Test for Children presented in quiet and noise (+5 dB signal-to-noise ratio).

Talker and lexical effects on audiovisual word recognition by adults with cochlear implants.

The present study examined how postlingually deafened adults with cochlear implants combine visual information from lipreading with auditory cues in an open-set word recognition task. Adults with normal hearing served as a comparison group. Word recognition performance was assessed using lexically controlled word lists presented under auditory-only, visual-only, and combined audiovisual presentation formats.

Language development in deaf infants following cochlear implantation.

Objective: To evaluate the benefits of cochlear implantation in infancy and compare them to those obtained in children implanted at a slightly older age.

Material And Methods: Using standard language measurement tools, including the Grammatical Analysis of Elicited Language--Presentence Level (GAEL-P) and the Reynell Developmental Language Scales, progress was documented in a child who received a cochlear implant in infancy and compared to that achieved in children implanted at older ages. A new measurement tool, the Visual Habituation Procedure, was used to document early skills and the results were compared to those obtained in normal-hearing infants.

Speech perception skills of deaf infants following cochlear implantation: a first report.

Objective: We adapted a behavioral procedure that has been used extensively with normal-hearing (NH) infants, the visual habituation (VH) procedure, to assess deaf infants' discrimination and attention to speech.

Methods: Twenty-four NH 6-month-olds, 24 NH 9-month-olds, and 16 deaf infants at various ages before and following cochlear implantation (CI) were tested in a sound booth on their caregiver's lap in front of a TV monitor. During the habituation phase, each infant was presented with a repeating speech sound (e.

Effects of age at implantation in young children.

This study examined the effects of age at implantation on the development of communication abilities in children with early implantation. The 73 participants were prelingually deafened, received a cochlear implant before 5 years of age, and used current cochlear implant technology. The children were administered a battery of speech and language outcome measures before implantation and again at successive 6-month postimplant intervals.

AUDIOVISUAL INTEGRATION OF SPEECH BY CHILDREN AND ADULTS WITH COCHEAR IMPLANTS.

The present study examined how prelingually deafened children and postlingually deafened adults with cochlear implants (CIs) combine visual speech information with auditory cues. Performance was assessed under auditory-alone (A), visual- alone (V), and combined audiovisual (AV) presentation formats. A measure of visual enhancement, R, was used to assess the gain in performance provided in the AV condition relative to the maximum possible performance in the auditory-alone format.