Recognition of Environmental Sounds by People Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: A Review of Experimental Studies

Abstract

― 78 ― Recently, because of improved neonatal hearing screening and advances in the quality of hearing aids, the auditory abilities of people who are deaf or hard of hearing have changed, and as a result, interest in their recognition of environmental sounds has increased. The present article reviews issues raised by experimental research on environmental sound recognition by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Previously published research has suggested that the hearing performance of people using hearing aids can be affected by their own level of hearing and by the spectro-temporal patterns of sounds in their environment. Spectro-temporal factors also affect the hearing of people who have cochlear implants. Moreover, people with a hearing level of 90 dB or more are considered to be suitable candidates for cochlear implantation so that they would become able to recognize sounds in their environment. On the other hand, some recent studies have indicated a new approach to assessing the cognitive process of recognizing environmental sounds in relation to 4 auditory function levels: detection, discrimination, identifıcation, and comprehension, and to assessing the utilization of contextual information in the recognition of environmental sounds. Taken together, these fındings suggest a similarity between the recognition of speech sounds and the recognition of environmental sounds, so that improving the ability to recognize environmental sounds should enable enhanced recognition of speech sounds. Further study should focus on the following: (a) examining the development of recognition of environmental sounds, (b) developing assessment batteries to measure the recognition of environmental sounds, (c) examining factors affecting variability in individual performances, and (d) developing learning methods to improve the recognition of environmental sounds.