The Influence of Vowels on the Identification of Spoken Disyllabic Words in the Malayalam Language for Individuals with Hearing Loss.

Background/objectives: The present study investigates the reasons for better recognition of disyllabic words in Malayalam among individuals with hearing loss. This research was conducted in three experiments. Experiment 1 measured the psychometric properties (slope, intercept, and maximum scores) of disyllabic wordlists.

Accuracy and Consistency of Confidence Limits for Monosyllable Identification Scores Derived Using Simulation, the Harrell-Davis Estimator, and Nonlinear Quantile Regression.

Background: Audiological diagnosis and rehabilitation often involve the assessment of whether the maximum speech identification score (PB) is poorer than expected from the pure-tone average (PTA) threshold. This requires the estimation of the lower boundary of the PB values expected for a given PTA (one-tailed 95% confidence limit, CL). This study compares the accuracy and consistency of three methods for estimating the 95% CL.

Caregiver's Quality of Life Among Children with Cerebral Palsy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Various Influencing Factors: A Single Cohort Study.

Purpose: Quality of life (QOL) among disabled children and their caregivers is an important concern in healthcare. We aim to evaluate the quality of life among caregivers of children with cerebral palsy and to observe the effects of various demographic factors and affected child-related factors on caregivers' quality of life.

Patients And Methods: After ethical approval and written consent was obtained from the participants.

The effect of recreational noise exposure on amplitude-modulation detection, hearing sensitivity at frequencies above 8 kHz, and perception of speech in noise.

Psychoacoustic and speech perception measures were compared for a group who were exposed to noise regularly through listening to music via personal music players (PMP) and a control group without such exposure. Lifetime noise exposure, quantified using the NESI questionnaire, averaged ten times higher for the exposed group than for the control group. Audiometric thresholds were similar for the two groups over the conventional frequency range up to 8 kHz, but for higher frequencies, the exposed group had higher thresholds than the control group.

The effect of age and hearing sensitivity at frequencies above 8 kHz on auditory stream segregation and speech perception.

The effects of age and mild hearing loss over the extended high-frequency (EHF) range from 9000 to 16 000 Hz on speech perception and auditory stream segregation were assessed using four groups: (1) young with normal hearing threshold levels (HTLs) over both the conventional and EHF range; (2) older with audiograms matched to those for group 1; (3) young with normal HTLs over the conventional frequency range and elevated HTLs over the EHF range; (4) older with audiograms matched to those for group 3. For speech in quiet, speech recognition thresholds and speech identification scores did not differ significantly across groups. For monosyllables in noise, both greater age and hearing loss over the EHF range adversely affected performance, but the effect of age was much larger than the effect of hearing status.

Long-Term Average Speech Spectra and Dynamic Ranges of 17 Indian Languages.

Purpose: In this work, we have determined the long-term average speech spectra (LTASS) and dynamic ranges (DR) of 17 Indian languages. This work is important because LTASS and DR are language-dependent functions used to fit hearing aids, calculate the Speech Intelligibility Index, and recognize speech automatically. Currently, LTASS and DR functions for English are used to fit hearing aids in India.

The Relationship Between Tinnitus Pitch, Audiogram Edge Frequency, and Auditory Stream Segregation Abilities in Individuals With Tinnitus.

Purpose Around 80%-93% of the individuals with tinnitus have hearing loss. Researchers have found that tinnitus pitch was related to the frequencies of hearing loss, but unclear about the relationship between tinnitus pitch and audiometry edge frequency. The comorbidity of tinnitus and speech perception in noise problems had also been reported, but the relationship between tinnitus pitch and speech perception in noise had seldom been investigated.

Influence of Alignment Strategies and Consonant Acoustic Features on Laterality Index in Dichotic Testing in Indian Languages.

Background: The right ear advantage (REA) observed for dichotic CV (DCV) testing in Indian languages is seen to be smaller compared with the observations in several studies in English and other languages.

Purpose: The present study aims to explore whether the differences in the temporal alignment of consonant-vowel (CV) stimuli used for the dichotic task is a contributing factor that can explain the smaller REAs observed in Indian languages.

Research Design: The study compared the laterality index (LI) values between DCV test results obtained using CV stimuli that were temporally aligned at the acoustic onset versus the burst onset, with 0 milliseconds lag between the right and left ears.

Prediction of successful hearing aid treatment in first-time and experienced hearing aid users: Using the International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids.

Objective: Primarily to understand whether clinically relevant factors affect the International Outcome Inventory (IOI-HA) scores and to examine if IOI-HA scores improve when renewing the hearing aids (HA) for experienced users. Secondly, to estimate the overall HA effectiveness using the IOI-HA.

Design: A prospective observational study.

Confidence Limits of Word Identification Scores Derived Using Nonlinear Quantile Regression.

The relation between degree of sensorineural hearing loss and maximum speech identification scores (PB) is commonly used in audiological diagnosis and rehabilitation. It is important to consider the relation between the degree of hearing loss and the lower boundary of PB, as the PB varies largely between subjects at a given degree of hearing loss. The present study determines the lower boundary by estimating the lower limit of the one-tailed 95% confidence limit (CL) for a Dantale I, word list, in a large group of young and older subjects with primarily sensorineural hearing loss.

Narrow-band ripple glide direction discrimination and its relationship to frequency selectivity estimated using psychophysical tuning curves.

The highest spectral ripple density at which the discrimination of ripple glide direction was possible (STRt task) was assessed for one-octave wide (narrowband) stimuli with center frequencies of 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz and for a broadband stimulus. A pink noise lowpass filtered at the lower edge frequency of the rippled-noise stimuli was used to mask possible combination ripples. The relationship between thresholds measured using the STRt task and estimates of the sharpness of tuning (Q10) derived from fast psychophysical tuning curves was assessed for subjects with normal hearing (NH) and cochlear hearing loss (CHL).

Effect of ripple repetition rate on discrimination of ripple glide direction and the detection of brief tones in spectro-temporal ripple noise.

The effect of temporal repetition rate R on the discrimination and internal representation of stimuli with spectro-temporal ripples was examined. Experiment 1 measured the highest ripple density D at which upward- and downward-gliding ripples could be discriminated. Thresholds varied only slightly for R from 2 to 8 Hz, with a median threshold just above 5 ripples/oct.

Development of equally intelligible Telugu sentence-lists to test speech recognition in noise.

Objective: To develop sentence lists in the Telugu language for the assessment of speech recognition threshold (SRT) in the presence of background noise through identification of the mean signal-to-noise ratio required to attain a 50% sentence recognition score (SRTn).

Design: This study was conducted in three phases. The first phase involved the selection and recording of Telugu sentences.

Effects of spectral smearing on performance of the spectral ripple and spectro-temporal ripple tests.

The main aim of this study was to use spectral smearing to evaluate the efficacy of a spectral ripple test (SRt) using stationary sounds and a recent variant with gliding ripples called the spectro-temporal ripple test (STRt) in measuring reduced spectral resolution. In experiment 1 the highest detectable ripple density was measured using four amounts of spectral smearing (unsmeared, mild, moderate, and severe). The thresholds worsened with increasing smearing and were similar for the SRt and the STRt across the three conditions with smearing.

Gender Differences in Audiological Findings and Hearing Aid Benefit in 255 Individuals with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder: A Retrospective Study.

Background: There are many studies reported in the literature that have summarized audiological findings and possible rehabilitation in individuals with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD). However, there are very few studies that have attempted to delineate the gender differences in audiological characteristics and hearing aid benefit in individuals with ANSD.

Purpose: The study aimed to explore the differences between males and females in terms of demographic details, audiogram, speech identification scores, otoacoustic emissions, acoustic reflexes, long latency responses, and hearing aid benefit.

Erratum: The Effect of Short-Term Auditory Training on Speech in Noise Perception and Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials in Adults with Cochlear Implants.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1055/s-0035-1570335.].

The Effect of Short-Term Auditory Training on Speech in Noise Perception and Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials in Adults with Cochlear Implants.

This study investigated whether a short intensive psychophysical auditory training program is associated with speech perception benefits and changes in cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) in adult cochlear implant (CI) users. Ten adult implant recipients trained approximately 7 hours on psychophysical tasks (Gap-in-Noise Detection, Frequency Discrimination, Spectral Rippled Noise [SRN], Iterated Rippled Noise, Temporal Modulation). Speech performance was assessed before and after training using Lexical Neighborhood Test (LNT) words in quiet and in eight-speaker babble.

Assessing spectral and temporal processing in children and adults using temporal modulation transfer function (TMTF), Iterated Ripple Noise (IRN) perception, and spectral ripple discrimination (SRD).

Background: There are many clinically available tests for the assessment of auditory processing skills in children and adults. However, there is limited data available on the maturational effects on the performance on these tests.

Purpose: The current study investigated maturational effects on auditory processing abilities using three psychophysical measures: temporal modulation transfer function (TMTF), iterated ripple noise (IRN) perception, and spectral ripple discrimination (SRD).

Time-frequency analysis of transient evoked-otoacoustic emissions in individuals with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder.

The aim of the study was to describe and quantify the cochlear active mechanisms in individuals with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorders (ANSD). Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions (TEOAEs) were recorded in 15 individuals with ANSD and 22 individuals with normal hearing. TEOAEs were analyzed by Wavelet transform method to describe and quantify the characteristics of TEOAEs in narrow-band frequency regions.

Effect of companding on speech recognition in quiet and noise for listeners with ANSD.

Objective: The present study assesses the effect of companding on speech perception in quiet and noise for listeners with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD).

Design: Speech perception was assessed using speech reception threshold in noise (SRTn) for sentences and consonant identification in quiet and at different signal-to-noise ratios (15, 10, 5, and 0 dB SNR).

Study Sample: Ten ANSD listeners and normal-hearing listeners participated in the study.

Temporal processing and speech perception in noise by listeners with auditory neuropathy.

Aim: The present study evaluated the relation between speech perception in the presence of background noise and temporal processing ability in listeners with Auditory Neuropathy (AN).

Method: The study included two experiments. In the first experiment, temporal resolution of listeners with normal hearing and those with AN was evaluated using measures of temporal modulation transfer function and frequency modulation detection at modulation rates of 2 and 10 Hz.

Effect of pre-transition stimulus duration on acoustic change complex.

Objective: To investigate the effect of pre-transition duration on acoustic change complex (ACC) for speech and tonal stimulus.

Design: Cortical potentials were recorded for consonant-vowel syllable and tonal complex stimuli with varying pre-transition durations.

Study Sample: Ten individuals (three male and seven female) in the age range from 18 to 26 years, with normal hearing sensitivity, participated in the study.

Perception of speech with envelope enhancement in individuals with auditory neuropathy and simulated loss of temporal modulation processing.

Individuals with auditory neuropathy (AN) often suffer from temporal processing deficits causing speech perception difficulties. In the present study an envelope enhancement scheme that incorporated envelope expansion was used to reduce the effects of temporal deficits. The study involved two experiments.

Perception of envelope-enhanced speech in the presence of noise by individuals with auditory neuropathy.

Objective: To investigate the effect of background noise on perception of unprocessed and envelope-enhanced speech in individuals with auditory neuropathy (AN).

Design: Open-set speech identification abilities were assessed for unprocessed and envelope-enhanced speech in quiet and at three signal to noise ratios (10, 5, and 0 dB signal to noise ratio) in 15 individuals with AN.

Results: Results revealed that speech identification ability was affected more in the presence of noise than in quiet.