The effects of hearing loss on the contribution of high- and low-frequency speech information to speech understanding

2003 ◽  
Vol 113 (3) ◽  
pp. 1706-1717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin W. Y. Hornsby ◽  
Todd A. Ricketts
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Theodoroff ◽  
Frederick J. Gallun ◽  
Garnett P. McMillan ◽  
Michelle Molis ◽  
Nirmal Srinivasan ◽  
...  

Purpose Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is associated with impaired hearing. However, the evidence is less clear if DM2 can lead to difficulty understanding speech in complex acoustic environments, independently of age and hearing loss effects. The purpose of this study was to estimate the magnitude of DM2-related effects on speech understanding in the presence of competing speech after adjusting for age and hearing. Method A cross-sectional study design was used to investigate the relationship between DM2 and speech understanding in 190 Veterans ( M age = 47 years, range: 25–76). Participants were classified as having no diabetes ( n = 74), prediabetes ( n = 19), or DM2 that was well controlled ( n = 24) or poorly controlled ( n = 73). A test of spatial release from masking (SRM) was presented in a virtual acoustical simulation over insert earphones with multiple talkers using sentences from the coordinate response measure corpus to determine the target-to-masker ratio (TMR) required for 50% correct identification of target speech. A linear mixed model of the TMR results was used to estimate SRM and separate effects of diabetes group, age, and low-frequency pure-tone average (PTA-low) and high-frequency pure-tone average. A separate model estimated the effects of DM2 on PTA-low. Results After adjusting for hearing and age, diabetes-related effects remained among those whose DM2 was well controlled, showing an SRM loss of approximately 0.5 dB. Results also showed effects of hearing loss and age, consistent with the literature on people without DM2. Low-frequency hearing loss was greater among those with DM2. Conclusions In a large cohort of Veterans, low-frequency hearing loss and older age negatively impact speech understanding. Compared with nondiabetics, individuals with controlled DM2 have additional auditory deficits beyond those associated with hearing loss or aging. These results provide a potential explanation for why individuals who have diabetes and/or are older often report difficulty understanding speech in real-world listening environments. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16746475


1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-40
Author(s):  
Gary Thompson ◽  
Marie Denman

Bone-conduction tests were administered to subjects who feigned a hearing loss in the right ear. The tests were conducted under two conditions: With and without occlusion of the non-test ear. It was anticipated that the occlusion effect, a well-known audiological principle, would operate to draw low frequency bone-conducted signals to the occluded side in a predictable manner. Results supported this expectation and are discussed in terms of their clinical implications.


2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (01) ◽  
pp. 025-037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Carle ◽  
Søren Laugesen ◽  
Claus Nielsen

In a clinical experiment, it was found that there is a high correlation between the compliance measured by tympanometry and the minimum size of the earmold vent, which just solves the client's occlusion problem related to his/her own voice when using a hearing aid. For ears with sensorineural hearing losses, compliance explained 59 percent of the variation in vent size, whereas the average low-frequency hearing loss explained as little as 0.3 percent. In a laboratory experiment, the objective occlusion effect measured with the participants' own voices showed a similar relationship with compliance. Whereas the former relationship between compliance and vent size may be explained by a simple model, the latter relationship turns out to be the opposite of what a firstorder model predicts. Hence, compliance must be indicative of another aspect of the occlusion mechanism, which has a more profound influence on the observed occlusion effect than compliance itself.


1984 ◽  
Vol 76 (S1) ◽  
pp. S61-S61
Author(s):  
M. J. Collins ◽  
J. L. Yanda ◽  
H. Fryauf ◽  
D. J. Schum
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (01) ◽  
pp. 058-067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel R. Atcherson ◽  
Lisa Lucks Mendel ◽  
Wesley J. Baltimore ◽  
Chhayakanta Patro ◽  
Sungmin Lee ◽  
...  

AbstractIt is generally well known that speech perception is often improved with integrated audiovisual input whether in quiet or in noise. In many health-care environments, however, conventional surgical masks block visual access to the mouth and obscure other potential facial cues. In addition, these environments can be noisy. Although these masks may not alter the acoustic properties, the presence of noise in addition to the lack of visual input can have a deleterious effect on speech understanding. A transparent (“see-through”) surgical mask may help to overcome this issue.To compare the effect of noise and various visual input conditions on speech understanding for listeners with normal hearing (NH) and hearing impairment using different surgical masks.Participants were assigned to one of three groups based on hearing sensitivity in this quasi-experimental, cross-sectional study.A total of 31 adults participated in this study: one talker, ten listeners with NH, ten listeners with moderate sensorineural hearing loss, and ten listeners with severe-to-profound hearing loss.Selected lists from the Connected Speech Test were digitally recorded with and without surgical masks and then presented to the listeners at 65 dB HL in five conditions against a background of four-talker babble (+10 dB SNR): without a mask (auditory only), without a mask (auditory and visual), with a transparent mask (auditory only), with a transparent mask (auditory and visual), and with a paper mask (auditory only).A significant difference was found in the spectral analyses of the speech stimuli with and without the masks; however, no more than ∼2 dB root mean square. Listeners with NH performed consistently well across all conditions. Both groups of listeners with hearing impairment benefitted from visual input from the transparent mask. The magnitude of improvement in speech perception in noise was greatest for the severe-to-profound group.Findings confirm improved speech perception performance in noise for listeners with hearing impairment when visual input is provided using a transparent surgical mask. Most importantly, the use of the transparent mask did not negatively affect speech perception performance in noise.


Author(s):  
V.B. Pankova ◽  
◽  
М.F. Vilk ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  

Annotation. On the example of railway and air transport, a number of new issues of occupational hearing loss are shown, requiring study and subsequent implementation in practical health care, as new etiological factors in the development of hearing loss. This concerns the factor of labor intensity, which has a potentiating, pathogenetic significance, along with noise, in the development of hearing loss due to the formation of chronic stress, leading to additional ischemia of the vascular stria and damage to the neuroepithelium of the inner ear. There is a need, along with the development of a methodology for assessing the factor of labor intensity for SOUT of workplaces, to determine the criteria for its negative action when used for the examination of the connection between the disease of the organ of hearing and the profession. In the «List of occupational diseases» in clause 2.4.2. indicated diseases associated with exposure to infrasound (IZ), among the manifestations of which, called sensorineural hearing loss bilateral. However, IZ, as well as low-frequency noise (LFN), were not previously considered as significant adverse factors in relation to the hearing organ in mass clinical trials, therefore, there are no expert criteria for the relationship between hearing loss and their impact, which could be applied in practice, which requires accumulation of evidence base for the subsequent substantiation of an independent nosological form of a disease of the organ of hearing, associated with mechanoacoustic exposure.


Author(s):  
Betsy Szeto ◽  
Chris Valentini ◽  
Anil K Lalwani

ABSTRACT Background The elderly are at increased risk of both hearing loss (HL) and osteoporosis. Bone mineral density (BMD) has been putatively linked to HL. However, the roles of serum calcium concentrations and vitamin D status have yet to be elucidated. Objectives The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between vitamin D status, parathyroid hormone (PTH), total calcium, BMD, and HL in a nationally representative sample of elderly adults. Methods Using the NHANES (2005–2010), audiometry and BMD data of 1123 participants aged ≥70 y were analyzed in a cross-sectional manner. HL was defined as pure tone averages >25 dB HL at 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz (low frequency); 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz (speech frequency); and 3000, 4000, 6000, and 8000 Hz (high frequency) in either ear. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the relation between HL and total 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], PTH, total calcium, and BMD, adjusting for covariates. Results In multivariable analyses, total 25(OH)D < 20 ng/mL was found to be associated with greater odds of low-frequency HL (OR: 2.02; 95% CI: 1.28, 3.19) and speech-frequency HL (OR: 1.96; 95% CI: 1.12, 3.44). A 1-unit decrease in femoral neck BMD (OR: 4.55; 95% CI: 1.28, 16.67) and a 1-unit decrease in total spine BMD (OR: 6.25; 95% CI: 1.33, 33.33) were found to be associated with greater odds of low-frequency HL. Serum PTH and total calcium were not found to be associated with HL. Conclusions In the elderly, low vitamin D status was associated with low-frequency and speech-frequency HL. Low vitamin D status may be a potential risk factor for age-related HL.


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