scholarly journals Impaired frequency selectivity and sensitivity to temporal fine structure, but not envelope cues, in children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss

2019 ◽  
Vol 146 (6) ◽  
pp. 4299-4314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna F. Halliday ◽  
Stuart Rosen ◽  
Outi Tuomainen ◽  
Axelle Calcus
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Halliday ◽  
Stuart Rosen ◽  
Outi Tuomainen ◽  
Axelle Calcus

Psychophysical thresholds were measured for 8-16 year-old children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL; N = 46) on a battery of auditory processing tasks that included measures designed to be predominantly reliant upon frequency selectivity, and sensitivity to temporal fine structure (TFS) or envelope cues. Children with MMHL who wore hearing aids were tested in both unaided and aided conditions, and all were compared to a group of normally hearing (NH) age-matched controls. Children with MMHL performed more poorly than NH controls on tasks considered to be dependent upon frequency selectivity, sensitivity to TFS, and speech discrimination (/bɑ/-/dɑ/), but not on tasks measuring sensitivity to envelope cues. Auditory processing deficits remained regardless of age, were observed in both unaided and aided conditions, and could not be attributed to differences in nonverbal IQ or attention between groups. However, better auditory processing for children with MMHL was predicted by better audiometric thresholds and, for aided tasks only, higher levels of maternal education. These results suggest that, as for adults with MMHL, children with MMHL may show deficits in their frequency selectivity and sensitivity to TFS, but that sensitivity to envelope cues may remain intact.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurianne Cabrera ◽  
Lorna Halliday

Children with sensorineural hearing loss show considerable variability in spoken language outcomes. We tested whether specific deficits in supra-threshold auditory perception might contribute to this variability. In a previous study [Halliday, Rosen, Tuomainen, & Calcus, (2019), J. Acoust. Soc. Am, 146, 4299], children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss (MMHL) were shown to perform more poorly than normally hearing (NH) controls on measures designed to assess sensitivity to the temporal fine structure (TFS, the rapid oscillations in the amplitude of narrowband signals over short time intervals). However, they performed within normal limits on measures assessing sensitivity to the envelope (E; the slow fluctuations in the overall amplitude). Here, individual differences in unaided sensitivity to TFS accounted for significant variance in the spoken language abilities of children with MMHL, after controlling for nonverbal IQ, family history of language difficulties, and hearing loss severity. Aided sensitivity to TFS and E cues was equally important for children with MMHL, whereas for children with NH, E cues were more important. These findings suggest that deficits in TFS perception may contribute to the variability in spoken language outcomes in children with sensorineural hearing loss.


1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia G. Stelmachowicz ◽  
Dawna E. Johnson ◽  
Lori L. Larson ◽  
Patrick E. Brookhouser

Changes in auditory threshold, psychophysical tuning curves, and speech perception (in both quiet and noise) were monitored over a 3-hr period following the ingestion of glycerol. All listeners had sensorineural hearing loss secondary to Menière's disease. Findings were characterized by large intersubject variability and in general did not show a clear relation between changes in threshold, frequency resolution, and speech perception.


2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (04) ◽  
pp. 258-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken W. Grant ◽  
Therese C. Walden

Background: Traditional audiometric measures, such as pure-tone thresholds or unaided word-recognition in quiet, appear to be of marginal use in predicting speech understanding by hearing-impaired (HI) individuals in background noise with or without amplification. Suprathreshold measures of auditory function (tolerance of noise, temporal and frequency resolution) appear to contribute more to success with amplification and may describe more effectively the distortion component of hearing. However, these measures are not typically measured clinically. When combined with measures of audibility, suprathreshold measures of auditory distortion may provide a much more complete understanding of speech deficits in noise by HI individuals. Purpose: The primary goal of this study was to investigate the relationship among measures of speech recognition in noise, frequency selectivity, temporal acuity, modulation masking release, and informational masking in adult and elderly patients with sensorineural hearing loss to determine whether peripheral distortion for suprathreshold sounds contributes to the varied outcomes experienced by patients with sensorineural hearing loss listening to speech in noise. Research Design: A correlational study. Study Sample: Twenty-seven patients with sensorineural hearing loss and four adults with normal hearing were enrolled in the study. Data Collection and Analysis: The data were collected in a sound attenuated test booth. For speech testing, subjects' verbal responses were scored by the experimenter and entered into a custom computer program. For frequency selectivity and temporal acuity measures, subject responses were recorded via a touch screen. Simple correlation, step-wise multiple linear regression analyses and a repeated analysis of variance were performed. Results: Results showed that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) loss could only be partially predicted by a listener's thresholds or audibility measures such as the Speech Intelligibility Index (SII). Correlations between SII and SNR loss were higher using the Hearing-in-Noise Test (HINT) than the Quick Speech-in-Noise test (QSIN) with the SII accounting for 71% of the variance in SNR loss for the HINT but only 49% for the QSIN. However, listener age and the addition of suprathreshold measures improved the prediction of SNR loss using the QSIN, accounting for nearly 71% of the variance. Conclusions: Two standard clinical speech-in-noise tests, QSIN and HINT, were used in this study to obtain a measure of SNR loss. When administered clinically, the QSIN appears to be less redundant with hearing thresholds than the HINT and is a better indicator of a patient's suprathreshold deficit and its impact on understanding speech in noise. Additional factors related to aging, spectral resolution, and, to a lesser extent, temporal resolution improved the ability to predict SNR loss measured with the QSIN. For the HINT, a listener's audibility and age were the only two significant factors. For both QSIN and HINT, roughly 25–30% of the variance in individual differences in SNR loss (i.e., the dB difference in SNR between an individual HI listener and a control group of NH listeners at a specified performance level, usually 50% word or sentence recognition) remained unexplained, suggesting the need for additional measures of suprathreshold acuity (e.g., sensitivity to temporal fine structure) or cognitive function (e.g., memory and attention) to further improve the ability to understand individual variability in SNR loss.


2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol L. Mackersie ◽  
Tammy L. Prida ◽  
Derek Stiles

The purpose of this study was to determine the role of frequency selectivity and sequential stream segregation in the perception of simultaneous sentences by listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. Simultaneous sentence perception was tested in listeners with normal hearing and with sensorineural hearing loss using sentence pairs consisting of one sentence spoken by a male talker and one sentence spoken by a female talker. Listeners were asked to repeat both sentences and were scored on the number of words repeated correctly in each sentence. Separate scores were obtained for the first and second sentences repeated. Frequency selectivity was assessed using a notched-noise method in which thresholds for a 1000 Hz pure-tone signal were measured in noise with spectral notch bandwidths of 0, 300, and 600 Hz. Sequential stream segregation was measured using tone sequences consisting of a fixed frequency (A) and a varying frequency tone (B). Tone sequences were presented in an ABA_ABA_... pattern starting at a frequency (B) either below or above the frequency of the fixed 1000 Hz tone (A). Initially, the frequency difference was large and was gradually decreased until listeners indicated that they could no longer perceptually separate the two tones (fusion threshold). Scores for the first sentence repeated decreased significantly with increasing age. There was a strong relationship between fusion threshold and simultaneous sentence perception, which remained even after partialling out the effects of age. Smaller frequency differences at fusion thresholds were associated with higher sentence scores. There was no relationship between frequency selectivity and simultaneous sentence perception. Results suggest that the abilities to perceptually separate pitch patterns and separate sentences spoken simultaneously by different talkers are mediated by the same underlying perceptual and/or cognitive factors.


1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Preminger ◽  
Terry L. Wiley

The relations between frequency selectivity and consonant intelligibility were investigated in subjects with sensorineura] hearing loss in an attempt to derive predictive indices. Three matched pairs of subjects with similar audiometric configurations (high-frequency, fiat or low-frequency hearing loss) but significantly different word-intelligibility scores were tested. Characteristics of psychophysical tuning curves (PTCs) for high- and low-frequency probes were compared with speech-intelligibility performance for high- and low-frequency consonant-vowel syllables. Frequency-specific relations between PTC characteristics and consonant-intelligibility performance were observed in the subject pairs with high-frequency and fiat sensorineural hearing loss. Corresponding results for the subject pair with low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss were equivocal.


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