"I think it impacts all areas of his life": Perspectives on hearing from mothers of individuals with Down syndrome.

Background: Individuals with Down syndrome are known to have high rates of hearing loss, but it is unclear how this impacts their ability to communicate and function in real-world environments.

Methods: Sixteen English-speaking and Spanish-speaking mothers of individuals with Down syndrome ages 6-40 years participated in individual, semi-structured interviews using a videoconferencing platform. Session transcripts were analysed using applied thematic analysis.

FORUM: Remote testing for psychological and physiological acoustics.

Acoustics research involving human participants typically takes place in specialized laboratory settings. Listening studies, for example, may present controlled sounds using calibrated transducers in sound-attenuating or anechoic chambers. In contrast, remote testing takes place outside of the laboratory in everyday settings (e.

Effects of word familiarity and receptive vocabulary size on speech-in-noise recognition among young adults with normal hearing.

Having a large receptive vocabulary benefits speech-in-noise recognition for young children, though this is not always the case for older children or adults. These observations could indicate that effects of receptive vocabulary size on speech-in-noise recognition differ depending on familiarity of the target words, with effects observed only for more recently acquired and less frequent words. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate effects of vocabulary size on open-set speech-in-noise recognition for adults with normal hearing.

Effect of Masker Head Orientation, Listener Age, and Extended High-Frequency Sensitivity on Speech Recognition in Spatially Separated Speech.

Objectives: Masked speech recognition is typically assessed as though the target and background talkers are all directly facing the listener. However, background speech in natural environments is often produced by talkers facing other directions, and talker head orientation affects the spectral content of speech, particularly at the extended high frequencies (EHFs; >8 kHz). This study investigated the effect of masker head orientation and listeners' EHF sensitivity on speech-in-speech recognition and spatial release from masking in children and adults.

Longitudinal Change in Speech Rate and Intelligibility Between 5 and 7 Years in Children With Cerebral Palsy.

Purpose We examined growth between 5 and 7 years in speech intelligibility, speech rate, and intelligible words per minute (IWPM) in 3 groups of children: those who were typically developing (TD), those with cerebral palsy (CP) and clinical speech motor impairment (SMI), and those with CP and no SMI (NSMI). Method Twenty-six children with CP, 16 with SMI, and 10 with NSMI were each seen at 5, 6, and 7 years of age. A cross-sectional group of 30 age-matched TD children, 10 in each age group, were included as controls.