Title: Reliability and Validity of Judgments of Sound Quality in
Elderly Hearing-Aid Wearers
Authors: M. Mini Narendren and Larry Humes

Outcome measures for hearing aids have been classified into those measuring aided performance, benefit, satisfaction, or use. Measurement of sound quality offers one possible subjective measure of aided performance and benefit. One of the more carefully developed measures of sound quality is the Judgments of Sound Quality (JSQ) test. The present study evaluated the validity and reliability of this test for potential use with elderly hearing-aid wearers. Sixteen elderly hearing-impaired provided ratings on eight dimensions of sound quality under four stimulus conditions. Test and retest ratings were obtained in both unaided and aided conditions. Results suggest that the JSQ is a potentially useful measure of hearing aid outcome, especially when using group data.

Title: Comparison of speech processing strategies used in the Clarion implant processor
Authors: Philipos C. Loizou, Ginger Stickney, Lakshmi Mishra and Peter Assmann

The latest cochlear implant (CI) processors support several speech coding strategies. In particular, the Clarion device offers some strategies based on simultaneous stimulation and some based on non-simultaneous pulsatile stimulation. This study used a within-subject design to evaluate speech perception using various speech processing strategies (CIS, SAS, PPS, QPS and HYB) supported by the Clarion S-Series implant processor. These speech-processing strategies varied in the degree of electrode simultaneity. Individual results indicated that most subjects performed worse with the SAS strategy (which stimulates all channels simultaneously) compared to the CIS strategy (which stimulates one channel at a time) on all tests. About 33% of the cochlear implant users benefited from the PPS and QPS strategies (which stimulate two and four channels at a time, respectively) on consonant and word recognition.

Title: Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emission (DPOAE) Response
Characteristics in Older Adults
Authors: Peter Terre III, Karen J. Cruickshanks, David M. Nondahl, Terry L. Wiley’

Behavioral audiometry is the primary tool for measuring hearing loss, but this behavioral test requires a willing, capable, and cooperative individual. When an individual is not able to respond during audiometric testing, otoacoustic emission (OAE) testing may offer one option for an objective measure of cochlear function. The purpose of this study was to determine the sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and accuracy of DPOAE responses across selected frequencies in a large, cross-sectional sample of older individuals from a population-based study of hearing loss. The DPOAE and noise response characteristics were evaluated at different frequencies and compared to individual pure-tone thresholds in the participants to investigate how DPOAE responses differentiated ears with normal hearing from impaired ears. Sensitivity and specificity varied by DPOAE response characteristics and frequency. Nevertheless, the results of this study support the use of DPOAEs as a clinical measure for older adults.

Title: Effects of Aging on Speech Sound discrimination In the Mongolian Gerbil
Authors: Joan M. Sinnott & Susannah B. Mosqueda

Are the deficits in spectral sensitivity that typically occur in elderly humans the result of normal intrinsic, unavoidable, time-related degeneration, or are they the cumulative result of minor extrinsic auditory insults due to disease and trauma, which may be avoidable? This study sheds some light on this complex question by studying a simple animal model, the Mongolian gerbil, raised in a controlled environment, free of noise, drugs, and other ototoxic stimuli. Difference limens (DLs) for frequency changes were measured along three synthetic speech continua in 25 gerbils as a function of age up to 36 months (equivalent to 60 years in humans). The results indicated no adverse effects of aging on the DLs for any of the speech continua, suggesting that the deficits typically observed in elderly humans for speech sound discrimination may be insult-related, and not the result of normal aging processes.

Title: Hearing Levels in Infants and Young Children in Relation to Testing
Technique, Age Group, and the Presence or Absence of Middle-Ear Effusion
Authors: Diane L. Sabo, Jack L. Paradise, Marcia Kurs-Lasky and Clyde G. Smith

Otitis media is, next to the common cold, the most commonly diagnosed pediatric illness in the United States. Concern about pediatric otitis media with effusion is related to the possibility that the condition, with its commonly associated conductive hearing impairment may, if persistent enough, result in lasting impairments of speech, language, cognitive, and psychosocial development. In this study, hearing thresholds were evaluated as a function of testing technique (visual reinforcement audiometry or conventional audiometry), age group, and middle-ear condition (bilateral, unilateral, or no middle ear effusion), in a sample of 1055 children. All three factors had an effect on measured thresholds. In particular, the presence of bilateral middle ear effusion was associated with hearing threshold levels 10 to 15 dB higher than the normative values for the corresponding age group. These results underscore the importance of taking into account the child’s age and the technique used, as well as the child’s middle ear status, when evaluating the clinical significance of hearing test results in young children.

Title: Longitudinal Changes in Children’s Speech andVoice Physiology
after Cochlear Implantation
Authors: Maureen B. Higgins, Elizabeth A. McCleary, Arlene Earley Camey and
Laura Schulte

The auditory input that becomes available to prelingually deaf children after they receive cochlear implants (CI’s) may help them develop more intelligible and normal-sounding speech. On the other hand, the acoustic signal that such children can access still may be so degraded that some of them will continue to produce abnormal or unintelligible speech. In this study, seven prelingually deafened children who received CI’s after 5 years of age were followed until 5-6 years post-implantation. These children received their early education in a Total Communication environment and used the Nucleus 22-electrode CI. Speech/voice physiological measurements included intraoral air pressure, nasal and phonatory airflow, voice onset time, and fundamental frequency. All children showed deviancy on at least two measures at the last data collection (5-6 years post implantation), and some of these measures became deviant only after implantation. Although these findings cannot be generalized to other populations (i.e., earlier implanted children or those educated in auditory-oral programs), it seems that we may not assume that children’s deviant speech/voice behaviors will remit spontaneously with continued CI use.

Title: Audibility-index predictions of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners’ performance on the Connected Speech Test
Authors: Robert L. Sherbecoe and Gerald A. Studebaker

In a previous study the authors derived a frequency-importance function and transfer function for the audio compact disc version of the Connected Speech Test (CST). These audibility-index (AI) functions theoretically allow performance on the test to be
predicted from measurements of the listener’s hearing thresholds and the speech and
noise signals that were presented. The current investigation evaluated the validity of these AI functions based on how well they predicted data from four published studies that presented the CST to normal-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) subjects. Good predictions were obtained for the NH subjects who had been tested under audio-only conditions but not those who had received audiovisual tests. The HI subject data had greater variability than that from NH listeners. The predictions for these subjects also decreased in accuracy when subject age increased beyond 70 years despite the application of an AI correction for age. Such results may have occurred because speech recognition deficits in people with hearing loss are not due only to diminished audibility. HI subjects, particularly if they are elderly, also may be more susceptible to masking effects or other factors not accounted for by the AI.

Title: Trends in Age of Identification and Intervention In Infants with Hearing Loss
Authors: Melody Harrison, Ph.D., Jackson Roush, PhD and Jennifer Wallace. MS

Newborn hearing screening has become more common since 1993, when the National Institutes of Health issued a consensus statement recommending its implementation.
This study surveyed parents of children under six years of age with a confirmed hearing loss, to investigate the age of identification and intervention for babies whose hearing is screened at birth, compared to those whose hearing is not screened. It was found that diagnosis and intervention occurred at an earlier age for infants screened at birth, and that infants screened at birth who had more severe degrees of hearing loss and an unknown cause tend to be identified and receive intervention by the age of six months. In contrast, prior to widespread implementation of newborn hearing screening, age of identification and intervention were consistently reported to exceed two years of age. Although limited to literate and English speaking respondents, the study provides supporting evidence that newborn hearing screening lowers the ages of identification and intervention.