scholarly journals Comparison of the South African Spondaic and CID W-1 wordlists for measuring speech recognition threshold

Author(s):  
Tanya Hanekom ◽  
Maggi Soer ◽  
Lidia Pottas

Background: The home language of most audiologists in South Africa is either English or Afrikaans, whereas most South Africans speak an African language as their home language. The use of an English wordlist, the South African Spondaic (SAS) wordlist, which is familiar to the English Second Language (ESL) population, was developed by the author for testing the speech recognition threshold (SRT) of ESL speakers. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the pure-tone average (PTA)/SRT correlation results of ESL participants when using the SAS wordlist (list A) and the CID W-1 spondaic wordlist (list B – less familiar; list C – more familiar CID W-1 words). Method: A mixed-group correlational, quantitative design was adopted. PTA and SRT measurements were compared for lists A, B and C for 101 (197 ears) ESL participants with normal hearing or a minimal hearing loss (<26 dBHL; mean age 33.3). Results: The Pearson correlation analysis revealed a strong PTA/SRT correlation when using list A (right 0.65; left 0.58) and list C (right 0.63; left 0.56). The use of list B revealed weak correlations (right 0.30; left 0.32). Paired sample t-tests indicated a statistically significantly stronger PTA/SRT correlation when list A was used, rather than list B or list C, at a 95% level of confidence. Conclusions: The use of the SAS wordlist yielded a stronger PTA/SRT correlation than the use of the CID W-1 wordlist, when performing SRT testing on South African ESL speakers with normal hearing, or minimal hearing loss (<26 dBHL).

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Widayat Alviandi ◽  
Jenny Bashiruddin ◽  
Brastho Bramantyo ◽  
Farisa Rizky

Background: Patients with hearing disturbance will generally undergo pure tone audiometry andspeech audiometry in a quiet room, but those examinations cannot evaluate the ability to understand speech in daily environment with a noisy background. Words in noise test will provide valuable informationregarding patient’s hearing problem in noise. Purpose: To evaluate the hearing threshold using wordsin noise test in adults with normal hearing. Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in CiptoMangunkusumo Hospital from January to April 2017. All subjects who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusioncriteria underwent pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry, and words in noise test. Results: A total of71 individuals with normal hearing were recruited for this study. Words in noise test showed the medianvalue of 67 dB and 100 dB for Speech Recognition Threshold (SRT) 50% and Speech DiscriminationScore (SDS) 100%, respectively. The SRT 50% and SDS 100% were significantly higher in the age group40–60 years compared to the age group 18–39 years. There was also a statistically significant differencebetween males and females at SRT 50% assessed by words in noise audiometry. Conclusion: Wordsin noise test showed a statistically significant difference in SRT 50% and SDS 100% between two agegroups, but no difference was found between genders. The result of this study can be used as a referencefor SRT and SDS values of speech audiometry test in noise.Keywords: words in noise, speech audiometry, speech recognition threshold, speech discrimination score ABSTRAKLatar belakang: Pasien dengan gangguan pendengaran umumnya menjalani pemeriksaanaudiometri nada murni dan audiometri tutur di ruangan yang sunyi, tetapi pemeriksaan ini tidakdapat menggambarkan kemampuan pemahaman wicara di lingkungan sehari-hari yang ramai. Testutur dalam bising dapat mengevaluasi masalah pendengaran pasien dalam keadaan bising. Tujuan:Untuk mengevaluasi ambang pendengaran menggunakan tes tutur dalam bising pada orang dewasadengan pendengaran normal. Metode: Penelitian potong lintang ini dilakukan di Rumah Sakit CiptoMangunkusumo dari Januari hingga April 2017. Semua subjek yang memenuhi kriteria inklusi daneksklusi menjalani pemeriksaan audiometri nada murni, audiometri tutur, dan tes tutur dalam bising.Hasil: Sebanyak 71 orang dengan pendengaran normal diikutsertakan dalam penelitian ini. Tes tuturdalam bising menunjukkan nilai median masing-masing 67 dB dan 100 dB pada Speech RecognitionThreshold (SRT) 50% dan Speech Discrimination Score (SDS) 100%. SRT 50% dan SDS 100% secarasignifikan lebih tinggi pada kelompok usia 40–60 tahun dibandingkan dengan kelompok usia 18–39 tahun. Hasil pemeriksaan tes tutur dalam bising menunjukkan perbedaan yang signifikan antara laki-laki dan wanita pada nilai SRT 50%. Kesimpulan: Tes tutur dalam bising menunjukkan perbedaan yang bermakna secara statistik pada SRT 50% dan SDS 100% antara dua kelompok umur, tetapi tidak ada perbedaan signifikan diantara jenis kelamin. Hasil penelitian ini dapat digunakan sebagai acuan untuk nilai SRT dan SDS pada pemeriksaan audiometri tutur dalam bising.


Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2050
Author(s):  
Tanya Nadia Glatt ◽  
Caroline Hilton ◽  
Cynthia Nyoni ◽  
Avril Swarts ◽  
Ronel Swanevelder ◽  
...  

Background: COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) has been considered internationally as a treatment option for COVID-19. CCP refers to plasma collected from donors who have recovered from and made antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. To date, convalescent plasma has not been collected in South Africa. As other investigational therapies and vaccination were not widely accessible, there was an urgent need to implement a CCP manufacture programme to service South Africans. Methods: The South African National Blood Service and the Western Cape Blood Service implemented a CCP programme that included CCP collection, processing, testing and storage. CCP units were tested for SARS-CoV-2 Spike ELISA and neutralising antibodies and routine blood transfusion parameters. CCP units from previously pregnant females were tested for anti-HLA and anti-HNA antibodies. Results: A total of 987 CCP units were collected from 243 donors, with a median of three donations per donor. Half of the CCP units had neutralising antibody titres of >1:160. One CCP unit was positive on the TPHA serology. All CCP units tested for anti-HLA antibodies were positive. Conclusion: Within three months of the first COVID-19 diagnosis in South Africa, a fully operational CCP programme was set up across South Africa. The infrastructure and skills implemented will likely benefit South Africans in this and future pandemics.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Hyslop

This chapter discusses the powerful and long-lasting impact Scottish military symbolism on the formation of military culture in South Africa. Drawing on the work of John MacKenzie and Jonathan Hyslop’s notion of ‘military Scottishness’, this chapter analyses how Scottish identity both interacted with the formation of political identities in South Africa, and ‘looped back’ to connect with changing forms of national identity in Scotland itself. In particular, it addresses how the South Africans’ heroic role at Delville Wood, during the Battle of the Somme, became a putative symbol of this racialised ‘South Africanism’. The South African Brigade included a battalion of so-called ‘South African Scottish’ which reflected the phenomenon of military Scottishness. Overall, the chapter looks at the way in which the representations of the role of the South African troops involved an interplay between British empire loyalism, white South African political identities, and Scottishness.


1987 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dianne J. Van Tasell ◽  
Jeilry L. Yanz

Speech recognition threshold (SRT) was measured in quiet and in noise for normal-hearing subjects and subjects with high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. For the hearing-impaired subjects, SRT in quiet approximated the amount of hearing loss in the frequency region of importance for each of two sets of speech materials—spondees and monosyllables. With changes in frequency response of the stimulus delivery system, SRT shifted differentially for spondees and monosyllables. The speed, reliability, and apparent sensitivity of the SRT in quiet and noise to frequency response characteristics make it a potentially useful tool for hearing aid evaluation if speech materials appropriate to both the hearing loss configuration and the frequency response of amplification are chosen.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ishara Ramkissoon ◽  
Julie M. Estis ◽  
Ashley Gaal Flagge

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. Janse van Rensburg ◽  
Gerrit J. Pienaar

Stranger in one’s own country? Theological guidelines from 1 Peter with a juridical foundationSome South Africans, more specifically Afrikaans-speaking citizens, experience their present position as that of being foreigners in their own country. Many of the privileges they had enjoyed in the past do not exist anymore. Moreover, it seems as if Afrikaners continuously lose other privileges too. In this article an attempt is made to apply the motif of alienation in 1 Peter to the mentioned situation as well as to highlight relevant stipulations in the South African constitution. The aim with this point of departure is to equip preachers and pastors with a biblically-valid perspective on the problem experienced. Such a perspective can contribute to a more positive attitude among Afrikaner Christians experiencing this kind of alienation and thus urge them to answer to their calling in a spirit of hopefulness.


Author(s):  
Katijah Khoza-Shangase

Background: Occupational noise-induced hearing loss (ONIHL) does not occur in isolation from other influencing factors such as health conditions and illnesses like human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV and AIDS), as well as tuberculosis (TB). How the burden of disease influences the occurrence and/or management of ONIHL becomes a key if the goal of hearing conservation programmes (HCPs) is to be achieved within these contexts.Objectives: The purpose of this scoping review was to conduct an investigation on how the burden of disease’s influence on ONIHL is reported in literature, with a specific focus on the most prevalent diseases in South African mines – HIV and AIDS and TB.Method: A scoping review was conducted using the Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. A search was conducted in five electronic bibliographic databases and the grey literature.Results: The search procured 10 publications, with two specific to ONIHL within the South African context. In addition to the two publications specific to TB and ONIHL, findings revealed a serious gap in the evidence around the scoping review question globally. This obvious lack of investigations into the influence of these two conditions in the South African mining context raises serious implications about the responsiveness, and proactive nature of HCPs within this population.Conclusion: Considering the burden of diseases on otology and audiology is critical as certain diseases cause hearing impairment either as a primary effect, as a secondary/opportunistic effect or as a side effect of treatment options for that disease. An employee suffering from any such disease with concomitant exposure to hazardous noise levels presents an even bigger challenge to HCPs if such is not taken into consideration in the conception, implementation and monitoring of HCPs.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 655-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela E. Souza ◽  
Christopher W. Turner

This study examined the contributions of various properties of background noise to the speech recognition difficulties experienced by young and elderly listeners with hearing loss. Three groups of subjects participated: young listeners with normal hearing, young listeners with sensorineural hearing loss, and elderly listeners with sensorineural hearing loss. Sensitivity thresholds up to 4000 Hz of the young and elderly groups of listeners with hearing loss were closely matched, and a high-pass masking noise was added to minimize the contributions of high-frequency (above 4000 Hz) thresholds, which were not closely matched. Speech recognition scores for monosyllables were obtained in the high-pass noise alone and in three noise backgrounds. The latter consisted of high-pass noise plus one of three maskers: speechspectrum noise, speech-spectrum noise temporally modulated by the envelope of multi-talker babble, and multi-talker babble. For all conditions, the groups with hearing impairment consistently scored lower than the group with normal hearing. Although there was a trend toward poorer speech-recognition scores as the masker condition more closely resembled the speech babble, the effect of masker condition was not statistically significant. There was no interaction between group and condition, implying that listeners with normal hearing and listeners with hearing loss are affected similarly by the type of background noise when the long-term spectrum of the masker is held constant. A significant effect of age was not observed. In addition, masked thresholds for pure tones in the presence of the speech-spectrum masker were not different for the young and elderly listeners with hearing loss. These results suggest that, for both steady-state and modulated background noises, difficulties in speech recognition for monosyllables are due primarily, and perhaps exclusively, to the presence of sensorineural hearing loss itself, and not to age-specific factors.


1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Gordon-Salant ◽  
Peter J. Fitzgibbons

The influence of selected cognitive factors on age-related changes in speech recognition was examined by measuring the effects of recall task, speech rate, and availability of contextual cues on recognition performance by young and elderly listeners. Stimuli were low and high context sentences from the R-SPIN test presented at normal and slowed speech rates in noise. Response modes were final word recall and sentence recall. The effects of hearing loss and age were examined by comparing performances of young and elderly listeners with normal hearing and young and elderly listeners with hearing loss. Listeners with hearing loss performed more poorly than listeners with normal hearing in nearly every condition. In addition, elderly listeners exhibited poorer performance than younger listeners on the sentence recall task, but not on the word recall task, indicating that added memory demands have a detrimental effect on elderly listeners' performance. Slowing of speech rate did not have a differential effect on performance of young and elderly listeners. All listeners performed well when stimulus contextual cues were available. Taken together, these results support the notion that the performance of elderly listeners with hearing loss is influenced by a combination of auditory processing factors, memory demands, and speech contextual information.


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