The Noise Level Measurements of Children’s Sound Books

Purpose: It was intended to measure the sound intensity of children's sound books and to compare them with the standards of Korea and the International Standards Organization (ISO).Methods: The loudness of 15 children’s sound books was measured at a distance of 25 cm (child’s arm length), and 2.5 cm length of external auditory canal. Measurements taken three times with each book were performed, and the overall sound intensity of the sound books and the sound intensity of each button were measured and compared.Results: Compared with the Korean standard, all the buttons of all books exceeded the standard for the sound volume of the children’s book measured at a distance of 2.5 cm. When comparing the maximum sound intensity measured at a distance of 25 cm with 85 LAmax, a total of 168 buttons of these, 25 (14.88%) were recorded as exceeding the maximum loudness. According to the standards of the ISO, all buttons in all books were below the standard 85 LAeq.Conclusion: Several children’s books are loud enough to cause noise-induced hearing loss, especially when they are placed close to the ear. Strict standards for sound children’s books are required, and it is important to put a warning on the cover of the book. It is expected that the sound intensity of the children’s sound book presented in this study can be referenced when referring to the loudness during hearing rehabilitation in children.

A Survey Study of Audiology Services during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic in South Korea

Purpose: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has severely affected public health and people’s lifestyle. The purpose of this survey study is to investigate audiology services during COVID-19 pandemic to understand the current audiology service situations in Korea and to improve audiology services.Methods: A total of 120 participants (60 audiologists and 60 clients visiting audiologists) were surveyed in this study using online or face-to-face methods. The participants answered 24~25 questions including current status of audiology service, communication difficulties with wearing masks, and the provision of tele-audiology services during COVID-19.Results: The results showed that both audiologists and clients with hearing loss still preferred face-to-face audiology services in COVID-19 situation in spite of 56% of visiting schedule delay and cancellation. The primary audiology services they considered in COVID-19 were hearing aid fitting and maintenance & repair services. Wearing masks has led communication difficulties in both audiologists and clients with hearing loss due to speech level reduction, frequency filtering of sounds, and insufficient visual cues during the conversation. Only 30% of audiologists have provided tele-audiology services, and 4.4% of clients received tele-audiology services during COVID-19.Conclusion: The impacts of COVID-19 in audiology services in South Korea are still progressing. The technical and administrative systems and educational support to improve audiology services in South Korea are necessary.

Hearing Aid Selection: Closed- versus Open-canal Fitting Hearing Aids

To select hearing aid is an essential process for successful hearing rehabilitation. The purpose of this study is to review hearing aid selection considerations between receiver in-the-canal (RIC) and custom hearing aid (CHA) in order to guide appropriate selection of the hearing aid. This study discussed three key factors in the hearing aid selection including physical, acoustic and electroacoustic characteristics and other aspects. Advantages of RIC types are comfort to wear, reduction of the occlusion effect, presence of directional microphones, on-site fit, easy connectivity with other devices, and use of rechargeable batteries. On the other hand, the CHA types have their advantage in terms of being comfort to wear with masks, proper insertion and placement, reduction of the acoustic feedback, good approximation of frequency response curve, improvement of speech in noise perception, expanded hearing aid candidacy with varying hearing thresholds, and easy telephone use. We concluded that appropriate selection of the hearing aid would contribute to successful hearing rehabilitation, if considering physical, psycho-social, and acoustical characteristics.

Development of Assessment of Music Perception for the Hearing-impaired

Purpose: Enhancement of musical perception has a positive impact on the emotional stability, quality of life, and aural rehabilitation in individuals with hearing loss. In Korea, however, there are a few test batteries available for properly assessing their abilities to perceive music. The purpose of this study was to develop a evaluation material for the music perception ability, Assessment of Music Perception (AMP) considering the Korean culture and emotion.Methods: A total of 15 normal hearing adults (33.1 ± 11.4 years) were recruited. They performed the AMP which includes eight sub-tests: pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre, and harmony perception test, emotional reaction test, Music listening Attitudes and Satisfaction Questionnaire (MASQ), and Mismatch negativity (MMN).Results: The average percentage of correct answer was 94.0% ± 6.1% in pitch perception test, 94.0% ± 7.1% in melody perception test, 99.3% ± 1.8% in rhythm perception test, 78.9% ± 41.8% in timbre perception test, 96.7% ± 10.4% in emotional reaction test, 85.7% ± 14.1% in harmony perception test. The area of the negative waveform for MMN was 275.27 ± 225.65 μV·ms with the intensity of 70 dBnHL.Conclusion: Considering high scores of a instrument, a developed AMP could be applied for evaluating the music perception ability. However, a little bit of correction for each factor of materials is recommended for comprehensive AMP material. In the future, the music perception ability of the hearing impaired should be evaluated utilizing AMP.

Test-retest Reliability of the Korean Matrix Sentence-in-noise Recognition in Sound-field Testing Condition

Purpose: This study aimed to measure the test-retest reliability of the Korean Matrix sentence-in-noise test in a sound-field testing condition.Methods: Fifty-five listeners with normal hearing participated. The sound-field speech-in-noise test was administered with a front loudspeaker by presenting noise at a fixed level (65 dB SPL) while adaptively adjusting the sentence level based on the listener’s response. The speech reception thresholds (SRTs) corresponding to 50% sentence-in-noise intelligibility were obtained using speech-shaped noise (SSN), International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA) noise, and International Speech Test Signal (ISTS) noise. For the test-retest reliability, each subject was tested twice in a 2-week interval. The test-retest reliabilities were judged by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), the minimal detectable change (MDC) values, and Bland-Altman plots.Results: The test-retest reliabilities of the Korean Matrix sentence test were good (ICC, 0.84~0.86) across SSN, ICRA, ISTS noises. The MDC was 0.92 dB SNR for SSN and 2.83 and 2.98 dB SNR for ICRA and ISTS, indicating the random measurement error varied across the types of noise.Conclusion: The Korean Matrix sentence-in-noise test can be used as a reliable tool to assess speech-in-noise intelligibility in sound-field testing condition. Further study across various sessions would strengthen the present finding.

Can the Tinnitus Magnitude Index Reflect the Depression and Anxiety of Tinnitus Sufferers?

Purpose: This study evaluates the relationship between tinnitus magnitude and depression and statetrait anxiety.Methods: A total of 65 subjects suffering from tinnitus participated. None reported any hearing problems. The participants filled in the Tinnitus Magnitude Index (TMI), the Korean version of the Beck depression inventory, and the Korean version of state-trait anxiety questionnaires with 61 out of 65 subjects completing all the questionnaires.Results: No significant relationships between tinnitus magnitude and depression or state-trait anxiety were found. However, items for the TMI were found to be significantly related (p < 0.05), and depression and state-strait anxiety also had a significant relationship (p < 0.05).Conclusion: We concluded that the TMI was not sensitive when used for assessing depression and anxiety in individuals who are suffering from tinnitus, which implying that the TMI questionnaire is useful for a quick assessment tool of the severity of tinnitus in individuals.

The Profile of Task Performances for Cognitive-communicative Intervention in the Oldest-Old

Purpose: The “oldest-old” is the heterogeneous population compared with the younger-old in several cognitive-communication aspects. Accordingly, it is necessary to intervene in them discriminately. This study aimed to suggest the performance profiles by cognitive-communication tasks for intervention in oldest-old.Methods: Sixty-four oldest-old subjects aged 80 or older years performed 16 subtasks for the five cognitive-communication domains. And the performance profiles of group I (84.00 ± 2.62 years) and II (93.38 ± 1.61 years) were analyzed.Results: The main findings were as follows. Firstly, two groups had significant differences in performances of most tasks including working memory, reasoning, word fluency, and subjective communication. Secondly, five communication tasks were significantly correlated with all cognitive tasks and were predicted by the reasoning tasks like similarity in group I. Thirdly, word fluency and pragmatic expression tasks were significantly correlated with all cognitive tasks. Tasks including verbal problem solving were found to be the best predictors of confrontation naming in group II.Conclusion: Current study provides evidence-based information to support cognitive-communication intervention for the oldest-old. These results also can contribute to increase the efficacy of the cognitive-communicative intervention.

Auditory Training for Spatial Hearing Loss: Two Case Reports of the Older Adults Who Wear Hearing Aids

The elderly with hearing loss have often experienced spatial hearing deficits when only wearing hearing aids. This case study aimed to investigate whether auditory training for spatial hearing loss could improve the spatial hearing ability of the elderly who wear hearing aids. Two older adults (males, aged 75 years and 78 years) who were wearing bilateral hearing aids participated. They had symmetric sensorineural hearing loss. A total of 16 auditory-training sessions (40 minutes, twice per week) for auditory training for spatial hearing ability provided. For outcome measurements, we assessed speech reception thresholds (SRTs) and spatial release from masking (SRM), using two types of noise, steady-state noise and speech-like noise at pre- and post-auditory training. Both subjects increased SRTs after the auditory training, but the SRM of only one participant improved. Also, there were no masking effects for SRM in terms of noise types. Both subjects reported that their trained hearing skills helped in communication with their families and friends. These results suggested that audiologists can consider auditory training for focusing on the spatial hearing loss for the elderly hearing aids users.

A Study for Composition and Comparison of the Music Perception Tests for Normal Hearing and Cochlear Implant Users

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compose the test for music perception and analyze the characteristic of cochlear implant users’ music perception.Methods: The test was made up with the pitch, melody, and timbre factors, using three low and high frequencies, six music genres, and four types of musical instruments correspondingly. The tests were conducted to 10 normal-hearing (NH) young adults and 10 young cochlear-implant (CI) users.Results: All the music perception tests showed significant differences between NH and CI group [F(1, 4) = 0.018, p = 0.019]. In the pitch test, CI group showed significantly lower correction rate(51.3%) than NH group (82.7%) did with higher correction rates in low frequencies. In the melody test, CI group showed significantly lower correction rate (29.7%) than NH group (95.8%) did with the highest performance in folk songs (51.7%). In the timbre test, CI group showed significantly reduced performance (22.5%) than NH group (65.8%) did. For both CI and NH groups, the pitched percussion showed the highest scores (45% and 100%) while the woodwind showed the lowest scores (13.3% and 48.3%).Conclusion: Out of three tests, CI group showed better performance in pitch perception than melody and timber perception. CI group showed better performances in low pitch sounds, melodies of familiar genre, and sound of pitched percussion instruments’ timber showing complicated music perception ability. To enhance the music perception ability for CI users by aural rehabilitation, more specified and systematic music perception test material should be developed.

Characteristics of Performance according to Type of Semantic Lexical Task in Normal Elderly and Individuals with Subjective Memory Impairment

Purpose: For comparison of a semantic knowledge processing of the elderly, particularly the normal individuals and individuals with subjective memory impairment, this study aims to clarify what factors of semantic knowledge task could sensitively discriminate between the two groups by conducting various types of tasks and analyzing the aspects.Methods: High/low frequency category fluency test, concrete/abstract noun word defining test, and semantic association task were performed by 30 normal subjects and 30 subjective memory impaired subjects over 65 years old. Total and each subcategory scores were assessed for the category fluency test and word defining test, and correct response and reaction time were measured for the semantic association task.Results: It was found that there were significant differences between the two groups in the total score of the category fluency task (p < 0.001), low-frequency category score, abstract noun word defining task score (p < 0.05), and reaction time of semantic association task (p < 0.01).Conclusion: The result showed that in case of a target word with lower contact frequency and more abstract concept, the elderly with subjective memory impairment have difficulties in neural-networking activation of semantic knowledge and control of interruption stimulation when approaching a target word, with increased reaction time. This findings demonstrate that a semantic and lexical task has a clinical significance in discriminating a subjective memory impairment group.