Effect of presentation level on the SSW test with hearing‐impaired adults

1983 ◽  
Vol 74 (S1) ◽  
pp. S39-S39
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Flynn ◽  
Jeffrey L. Danhauer ◽  
Dennis J. Arnst ◽  
Monica C. Goller ◽  
Sanford E. Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Presentation Level

The Effect of Presentation Level on Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Listeners' Acceptable Speech and Noise Levels

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (01) ◽  
pp. 017-025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karrie L. Recker ◽  
Brent W. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Noise Levels ◽  
Repeated Measures Design ◽  
Presentation Level ◽  
Different Levels

Background: Acceptable noise level (ANL) is a measure of the maximum amount of background noise that a listener is willing to “put up with” while listening to running speech. This test is unique in that it can predict with a high degree of accuracy who will be a successful hearing-aid wearer. Individuals who tolerate high levels of background noise are generally successful hearing-aid wearers, whereas individuals who do not tolerate background noise well are generally unsuccessful hearing-aid wearers. Purpose: Various studies have been unsuccessful in trying to relate ANLs to listener characteristics or other test results. Presumably, understanding the perceptual mechanism by which listeners determine their ANLs could provide an understanding of the ANL's unique predictive abilities and our current inability to correlate these results with other listener attributes or test results. As a first step in investigating this problem, the relationships between ANLs and other threshold measures where listeners adjust the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) according to some criterion in a way similar to the ANL measure were examined. Research Design and Study Sample: Ten normal-hearing and 10 hearing-impaired individuals participated in a laboratory experiment that followed a within-subjects, repeated-measures design. Data Collection and Analysis: Participants were seated in a sound booth. Running speech and noise (eight-talker babble) were presented from a loudspeaker at 0°, 3 ft in front of the participant. Individuals adjusted either the level of the speech or the level of the background noise. Specifically, with the speech fixed at different levels (50, 63, 75, or 88 dBA), participants performed the ANL task, in which they adjusted the level of the background noise to the maximum level at which they were willing to listen while following the speech. With the noise fixed at different levels (50, 60, 70, or 80 dBA), participants adjusted the level of the speech to the minimum, preferred, or maximum levels at which they were willing to listen while following the speech. Additionally, for the minimum acceptable speech level task, each participant was tested at four participant-specific noise levels, based on his/her ANL results. To emphasize that the speech level was adjusted in these measurements, three new terms were coined: “minimum acceptable speech level” (MinASL), “preferred speech level” (PSL), and “maximum acceptable speech level” (MaxASL). Each condition was presented twice, and the results were averaged. Test order and presentation level were randomized. Hearing-impaired participants were tested in the aided condition only. Results: For most participants, as the presentation level increased, SNRs increased for the ANL test but decreased for the MinASL, PSL, and MaxASL tests. For a few participants, ANLs were similar to MinASLs. For most test conditions, the normal-hearing results were not significantly different from those of the hearing-impaired participants. Conclusions: For most participants, stimulus level affected the SNRs at which they were willing to listen. However, a subset of listeners was willing to listen at a constant SNR for the ANL and MinASL tests. Furthermore, for these individuals, ANLs and MinASLs were roughly equal, suggesting that these individuals may have used the same perceptual criterion for both tests.

Effects of Stimulus Presentation Level on Stop Consonant Identification in Normal-Hearing and Hearing-Impaired Listeners

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (03) ◽  
pp. 154-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick N. Plyler ◽  
Mark S. Hedrick
Keyword(s):  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Impaired Hearing ◽  
Boundary Values ◽  
Hearing Sensitivity ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Presentation Level ◽  
Boundary Shift

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether varying the presentation level of stop consonant stimuli resulted in similar phonetic boundary shifts for listeners with normal and impaired hearing. Sixteen normal-hearing and 16 hearing-impaired listeners categorized synthetic speech stimuli as /b/, /d/, or /g/. The onset frequency of F2 varied from 900 to 2300 Hz (100-Hz steps), and the presentation level varied from 92 to 62 dB SPL (10-dB steps) for each stimulus presentation. Hearing-impaired listeners had significantly more missing boundary values than normal-hearing listeners; however, the correlation between the number of missing boundary values and hearing sensitivity was not significant. Comparison of boundary shift with level demonstrated that hearing-impaired listeners had a smaller boundary shift with increasing level than normal-hearing listeners. The amount of boundary shift was not correlated with audibility. The results of the current study suggest that increasing the presentation level of a signal does not result in performance similar to that of listeners with normal hearing.

Teacher Identification of Elementary School Children with Hearing Loss

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Nodar
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
School Children ◽  
Elementary School Children ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Teacher Interviews ◽  
Teacher Screening ◽  
Children With Hearing Loss ◽  
Hearing Problems

The teachers of 2231 elementary school children were asked to identify those with known or suspected hearing problems. Following screening, the data were compared. Teachers identified 5% of the children as hearing-impaired, while screening identified only 3%. There was agreement between the two procedures on 1%. Subsequent to the teacher interviews, rescreening and tympanometry were conducted. These procedures indicated that teacher screening and tympanometry were in agreement on 2% of the total sample or 50% of the hearing-loss group. It was concluded that teachers could supplement audiometry, particularly when otoscopy and typanometry are not available.

Systematic Modification of Parental Input to Train Language Symbols

1981 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Culatta ◽  
Donna Horn
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Meaningful Use ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Parental Input ◽  
Language Exposure ◽  
Therapy Sessions ◽  
Impaired Children ◽  
Hearing Impaired Children ◽  
At Home

This study attempted to maximize environmental language learning for four hearing-impaired children. The children's mothers were systematically trained to present specific language symbols to their children at home. An increase in meaningful use of these words was observed during therapy sessions. In addition, as the mothers began to generalize the language exposure strategies, an increase was observed in the children's use of words not specifically identified by the clinician as targets.

Equivalent Noise Dose Obtained Through Hearing Aids in the Classrooms of Hearing-Impaired Children

1990 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-150
Author(s):  
Ronald A. Wilde
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Aids ◽  
High Gain ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Impaired Children ◽  
Very High ◽  
Hearing Impaired Children

A commercial noise dose meter was used to estimate the equivalent noise dose received through high-gain hearing aids worn in a school for deaf children. There were no significant differences among nominal SSPL settings and all SSPL settings produced very high equivalent noise doses, although these are within the parameters of previous projections.

Hearing Aid Amplification Reduces Communication Effort of People With Hearing Impairment and Their Conversation Partners

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1299-1311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Beechey ◽  
Jörg M. Buchholz ◽  
Gitte Keidser
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Hearing Aid ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Referential Communication ◽  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Directional Hearing ◽  
Acoustic Environment ◽  
Communication Task ◽  
Acoustic Environments ◽  
The Impact

Objectives This study investigates the hypothesis that hearing aid amplification reduces effort within conversation for both hearing aid wearers and their communication partners. Levels of effort, in the form of speech production modifications, required to maintain successful spoken communication in a range of acoustic environments are compared to earlier reported results measured in unaided conversation conditions. Design Fifteen young adult normal-hearing participants and 15 older adult hearing-impaired participants were tested in pairs. Each pair consisted of one young normal-hearing participant and one older hearing-impaired participant. Hearing-impaired participants received directional hearing aid amplification, according to their audiogram, via a master hearing aid with gain provided according to the NAL-NL2 fitting formula. Pairs of participants were required to take part in naturalistic conversations through the use of a referential communication task. Each pair took part in five conversations, each of 5-min duration. During each conversation, participants were exposed to one of five different realistic acoustic environments presented through highly open headphones. The ordering of acoustic environments across experimental blocks was pseudorandomized. Resulting recordings of conversational speech were analyzed to determine the magnitude of speech modifications, in terms of vocal level and spectrum, produced by normal-hearing talkers as a function of both acoustic environment and the degree of high-frequency average hearing impairment of their conversation partner. Results The magnitude of spectral modifications of speech produced by normal-hearing talkers during conversations with aided hearing-impaired interlocutors was smaller than the speech modifications observed during conversations between the same pairs of participants in the absence of hearing aid amplification. Conclusions The provision of hearing aid amplification reduces the effort required to maintain communication in adverse conditions. This reduction in effort provides benefit to hearing-impaired individuals and also to the conversation partners of hearing-impaired individuals. By considering the impact of amplification on both sides of dyadic conversations, this approach contributes to an increased understanding of the likely impact of hearing impairment on everyday communication.

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