List Equivalency and Critical Differences of a Mandarin Bamford-Kowal-Bench Sentence in Babble Noise Test for Adults and Preschool Children With Normal Hearing.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the speech recognition equivalence of Mandarin Bamford-Kowal-Bench (BKB) sentence lists with adults and children with normal hearing.

Method: A total of 32 lists, each of nine sentences, were compiled from a corpus of BKB-like sentences with paired babble in Mandarin. Interlist equivalence, critical differences, and sensitivity of performance to signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were examined.

Strong Relationship Between Rapid Auditory Processing and Affective Prosody Recognition Among Adults with High Autistic Traits.

This study investigated whether individuals with high autistic traits rely on psychoacoustic abilities in affective prosody recognition (APR). In 94 college students, Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and psychoacoustic abilities were measured. Results indicated that higher AQ, higher rapid auditory processing (RAP), and maleness were associated with a lower APR accuracy for low-intensity prosodies.

The MAndarin spoken word-Picture IDentification test in noise-Adaptive (MAPID-A) measures subtle speech-recognition-in-noise changes and spatial release from masking in very young children.

Background: Spatial release of masking (SRM) is a measure of an individual's ability to perform speech-noise segregation, which is usually quantified by the extent of improvement of the individual's speech recognition performance when the noise is switched from a spatially co-located position (e.g., speech and noise both presented from the front) to a spatially separated position (e.

Validation of the Paediatric Hearing Impairment Caregiver Experience (PHICE) Questionnaire.

Introduction: The paediatric hearing impairment caregiver experience (PHICE) questionnaire is a 68-item instrument that assesses the stress experienced by caregivers of children with hearing impairment (HI). While the questionnaire has been validated in the United States, it may need to be modified for use in the Singapore context due to the differing healthcare system, costing and culture related to caregiving for children with HI. This study aims to modify and validate the PHICE questionnaire to increase its relevance and ease of use in Singapore.

Development of spatial release from masking in mandarin-speaking children with normal hearing.

Purpose: This study investigated the development of spatial release from masking in children using closed-set Mandarin disyllabic words and monosyllabic words carrying lexical tones as test stimuli and speech spectrum-weighted noise as a masker.

Method: Twenty-six children ages 4-9 years and 12 adults, all with normal hearing, participated in speech recognition tests under 2 conditions: (a) speech and noise spatially mixed and presented from the front (NF), and (b) speech presented from the front with noise spatially separated and presented from the side (NS) with different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Performance-SNR psychometric functions were obtained that generated the SNR for a 50% correct score (SNR-50%) as the outcome measure.

Training a new generation of speech-language pathologists with competences in the management of literacy disorders and learning disabilities in Hong Kong.

One of the recent developments in the education of speech-language pathology is to include literacy disorders and learning disabilities as key training components in the training curriculum. Disorders in reading and writing are interwoven with disorders in speaking and listening, which should be managed holistically, particularly in children and adolescents. With extensive training in clinical linguistics, language disorders, and other theoretical knowledge and clinical skills, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are the best equipped and most competent professionals to screen, identify, diagnose, and manage individuals with literacy disorders.

Hearing impairment and depressive symptoms in an older chinese population.

Objective: To investigate the association of objectively measured hearing loss and depression in an older Chinese population.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Screening service provided to the elderly as part of a charity program in collaboration with a local group of medical and audiologic professionals.

Cantonese tone recognition with enhanced temporal periodicity cues.

This study investigated the contributions of temporal periodicity cues and the effectiveness of enhancing these cues for Cantonese tone recognition in noise. A multichannel noise-excited vocoder was used to simulate speech processing in cochlear implants. Ten normal-hearing listeners were tested.

Lexical tone and word recognition in noise of Mandarin-speaking children who use cochlear implants and hearing aids in opposite ears.

The benefits of bimodal hearing (cochlear implant and hearing aid in opposite ears) in children are well documented in English-speaking populations (Ching et al., 2000; Holt et al., 2005) but not much evidence has been reported from populations using tonal languages.

Development of the computerized Cantonese disyllabic lexical tone identification test in noise (CANDILET-N).

CANDILET-N is a closed-set speech-recognition test to assess lexical tone recognition in noise for Cantonese speakers. The test consists of 60 test items in a four-alternative forced-choice test paradigm, with male and female speaker versions. Each test plate consists of two disyllabic-word lexical tone minimal pair test items and their respective phonemic distracters.

Development of the computerized Mandarin pediatric lexical tone and disyllabic-word picture identification test in noise (MAPPID-N).

MAPPID-N was developed to assess the speech-recognition abilities in noise of Mandarin-speaking children on disyllabic words, and lexical tones in monosyllabic words, in a picture-identification test format. Twenty-six normal-hearing children aged four to nine years listened repeatedly to the test materials where noise was spatially mixed with or separated from speech, in different signal-to-noise (SNR) ratios, to obtain performance-SNR functions and SNR for 50% correct scores (SNR-50%). SNR-50% improved with age only when noise was spatially separated from speech but not when noise was mixed with speech, suggesting the improvement with age in the use of intensity and timing cues differences between the two ears.

Cantonese lexical tone recognition from frequency-specific temporal envelope and periodicity components in the same versus different noise band carriers.

Temporal envelope and periodicity components (TEPCs) in the speech signal offer important cues for speech recognition. A recent study revealed that TEPCs extracted from the high-frequency regions contribute significantly to Cantonese lexical tone recognition at the monosyllabic word level (Yuen et al., 2006).

The development of Cantonese Lexical Neighborhood Test: a pilot study.

Objective: This study aimed at developing a theoretically driven open-set speech recognition test for pediatric clinical population of cochlear implant and/or hearing aid users, with Cantonese Chinese as their first language, to track progress in speech recognition performance as an outcome measurement of their rehabilitation.

Methods: Six monosyllabic and six disyllabic word lists were generated from the Cantonese CHILDES language database, constructed according to the Neighborhood Activation Model. There were three lexically "easy" and three lexically "hard" word lists in each sub-test, with 25 items in each list.

Band-specific temporal periodicity enhancement for Cantonese tone perception with noise-excited vocoder.

This paper describes a study on the effectiveness of expanding the temporal envelope and periodicity component (TEPC) for Cantonese tone perception. The ultimate goal is to develop speech processing techniques that can improve speech perception of hearing prosthesis users. Cantonese is a popular Chinese dialect with a complex lexical tone system.

Frequency-specific temporal envelope and periodicity components for lexical tone identification in Cantonese.

Objectives: Temporal envelope and periodicity components (TEPC) in the speech signal have potentials to offer important cues for speech recognition especially in tonal languages. The aims of this study are: (i) to investigate the degree of contributions of TEPC to lexical tone identification in Cantonese; and (ii) to investigate whether or not the contributions vary among different frequency bands. The results of these investigations would reveal if there are any frequency-specific TEPC that are important for lexical tone identification.

Comparative performance of an adaptive directional microphone system and a multichannel noise reduction system.

The amplification outcomes of two hearing aid prescriptions, NAL-NL1 and Digital Perception Processing (DPP), of nine moderate to moderately severe hearing-impaired adults were compared in the same digital hearing instrument. NAL-NL1 aims at optimizing speech intelligibility while amplifying the speech signal to a normal overall loudness level (Dillon, 1999). DPP focuses on restoring loudness based on normal and impaired cochlear excitation models (Launer and Moore, 2003).

Auditory neuropathy/auditory dys-synchrony in school children with hearing loss: frequency of occurrence.

Objective: The frequency of occurrence of a recently identified hearing disorder, auditory neuropathy/auditory dys-synchrony (AN/AD), was investigated in children with hearing impairment in Hong Kong.

Methods: In this study, 56 students, aged 7-18 years, attending primary divisions in schools for the hearing impaired were screened using otoacoustic emission procedures.

Results: One student in the study group was found to have intact outer hair cell function.