Ear and Hearing最新文献

{"title":"Speech Perception and Language Abilities Among Children Using Cochlear Implants: Findings From a Primary School Age Cohort in South India.","authors":"Jeena Mary Joy, Lakshmi Venkatesh, Samuel N Mathew, Swapna Narayanan, Sita Sreekumar","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001610","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001610","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>This study aimed to profile the speech perception and language abilities of a cohort of pediatric cochlear implant (CI) users in primary school years. It also aimed to understand the intercorrelations among audiological, child, and environmental characteristics, speech perception, and language skills and to explore the predictors of speech perception and language skills.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>A cross-sectional design was used for the study. The participants were 222 pediatric CI users (106 boys; 116 girls) with a mean chronological age of 10.51 (SD ± 1.28) years. Participants had received CIs at a mean age of 2.93 (SD ± 0.95) years, with the mean duration of CI use being 7.43 (SD ± 1.15) years at the time of assessment. Participants completed an assessment battery comprising speech perception (phoneme discrimination, open-set speech perception in quiet) and language (semantics, syntax) tasks. Selected audiological, child, and environmental characteristics were documented. The mean and SDs of the measures across age categories (8 to 12 years) and the proportion of children attaining scores better than 80%, between 50 and 80%, and poorer than 50% of the total possible score in each task were computed to generate a profile of speech perception and language abilities. Correlational and regression analyses assessed the intercorrelations among the variables and predictors of speech perception and language abilities.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A large proportion (79.0%) of children in the study group obtained scores better than 80% for phoneme discrimination, whereas only 17.8% scored better than 80% for open-set speech perception in quiet. Additionally, 42.8 and 20.8% of children scored better than 80% for semantics and syntax, respectively. Speech perception and language abilities demonstrated moderate-strong intercorrelations, contributing to a significant proportion of the total variance explained in phoneme discrimination (42.9%), open-set speech perception (61.8%), semantics (63.0%), and syntax (60.8%). Phoneme discrimination and open-set speech perception emerged as large contributors to variance in overall language abilities. Among the audiological factors, only hearing age contributed to a small proportion of variance (3 to 6%) across children's speech perception and language performance.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Children using CI demonstrated highly variable performance in speech perception and expressive language skills during primary school. Although children demonstrated improved performance in phoneme discrimination and semantics, they continued to face challenges in the (quiet) speech perception and syntax abilities. The effect of audiological, child, and environmental factors was minimal in explaining the variance in speech perception and language abilities, which shared a bidirectional relationship. The findings relating to mid-term outcomes, ranging from 4 to 9 years after cochle","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"673-686"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142831099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Validation of the Vanderbilt Classroom Listening Assessment Short Survey for Children With Unilateral Hearing Loss.","authors":"Erin M Picou, Hilary Davis, Kathleen Healy Lunsford, Anne Marie Tharpe","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001612","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001612","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Children with unilateral hearing loss experience difficulties in classroom listening situations. There are a limited number of validated questionnaires available for monitoring listening development and quantifying the challenges school-aged children with unilateral hearing loss experience. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a survey that describes the classroom listening challenges reported by children with unilateral hearing loss with and without the use of personal hearing devices (air conduction hearing aid, bone conduction hearing aid, cochlear implant, contralateral routing of signals system).</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Children aged 9 to 17 years with self-reported unilateral hearing loss completed an online survey about classroom listening difficulties when not using a personal hearing device (n = 1148) or with the use of a personal hearing device (n = 897). The survey includes 15 questions examining different situations common in modern classrooms. Each question includes a picture depicting the described listening situation. Exploratory factor analysis was used to develop subscales and the internal reliability of the subscales was evaluated. To validate the survey, the relationships between survey scores and self-reported hearing difficulties (without a personal hearing device) or type of device (with a personal hearing device) were evaluated using regression analyses.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Factor analysis revealed survey scores for individual items statistically loaded onto three factors. On the basis of these factors, subscales were created, which are related to: (1) listening situations where the talker is faraway from the child, (2) listening situations where the talker is close to the child and they are inside a building, and (3) listening situations where the talker is close to the child and they are outside a building. Regression analyses revealed children reported the greatest difficulty in school settings when the sound of interest was faraway from them. Although scores were generally higher, indicating listening was easier, when children were wearing their personal hearing devices (i.e., air conduction hearing aid, bone conduction hearing aid, contralateral routing of signals system, cochlear implant), situations with faraway signals were still reported as more challenging than were situations where signals were close.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This set of findings highlights the need to incorporate distance effects into laboratory evaluations that include children with unilateral hearing loss. In addition, the findings support clinical interventions that address talker-to-listener distances, such as preferential seating and remote microphone systems. Last, the results of this study validate the Vanderbilt Classroom Listening Assessment Short Survey for use with children aged 9 to 17 years of age with unilateral self-reported hearing difficulty. The subscales are em","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"640-652"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142856683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of Noise Exposure on Peripheral Auditory Function, Binaural Envelope Coding, and Speech Perception in Student Musicians With Normal Hearing.","authors":"Chhayakanta Patro, Aviya Singer, Angela Monfiletto, Katherine Peitsch, William J Bologna","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001609","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001609","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Musicians face an increased risk of hearing loss due to prolonged and repetitive exposure to high-noise levels. Detecting early signs of hearing loss, which are subtle and often elusive to traditional clinical tests like pure-tone audiometry, is essential. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of noise exposure on the electrophysiological and perceptual aspects of subclinical hearing damage in young musicians with normal audiometric thresholds.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>The study included 33 musicians and 33 nonmusicians, all aged between 21 and 35 years, with normal audiometric thresholds. Participants underwent a comprehensive test battery, which encompassed standard and extended high-frequency (EHF) pure-tone audiometry (0.25 to 16 kHz), a Noise Exposure Structured Interview, auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) to clicks at various presentation rates and levels, thresholds for detecting interaural envelope time difference, and a spatial release from masking (SRM) paradigm in which the target speech was presented in the presence of either colocated or spatially separated time-reversed two-talker babble.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The results indicated the musician group reported greater lifetime noise exposure than the nonmusician group, but the Noise Exposure Structured Interview scores were neither correlated with the ABR results nor with the speech perception outcomes. The ABR analyses indicated diminished level-dependent growth and increased rate-dependent decline in wave I amplitudes among musicians compared with nonmusicians. The student musicians exhibited better binaural envelope processing skills than nonmusicians, emphasizing their perceptual advantages in auditory processing associated with musicianship. Speech perception results indicated no significant differences in SRM between student musicians and nonmusicians. However, in both groups, individuals with poorer EHF hearing exhibited reduced SRM compared with those with normal EHF hearing, underscoring the importance of assessing and addressing EHF hearing.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Student musicians exhibit peripheral neural deficits; however, no clear relation was found between these neural deficits and their perceptual skills. Notably, reduced EHF thresholds were clearly related to reduced SRM, which poses a challenge for speech perception in complex multi-talker environments, affecting both musicians and nonmusicians alike.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"607-623"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Music Perception in Older Adults With Hearing Loss: Protective Effect of Musical Experience.","authors":"Alexis Whittom, Loonan Chauvette, Alex Bégin, Isabelle Blanchette, Pascale Tremblay, Andréanne Sharp","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001615","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001615","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>The goal of this project was to investigate the impact of musical experience, hearing loss, and age on music perception in older adults. The authors hypothesized that older adults with a varying degree of musical experience would perform better at music perception tasks than their counterparts without musical experience while controlling for age and hearing loss.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>This study used a descriptive correlational cross-sectional design. Seventy-seven older adults aged 60 to 90 years were recruited and divided into two groups based on their lifetime musical experience: the group without musical experience (n = 39) and the M group (with musical experience; n = 38). Participants in the M group had either played an instrument for 5 years or more and/or taken at least 1 year of music lessons. Following a hearing screening and a musical experience questionnaire, participants completed two music perception tasks: (1) a short version of the Montreal Battery Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) measuring melodic (scale and contour) and rhythm perception, and (2) an instrument discrimination task measuring timbre perception.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Results revealed that participants of the M group had a significantly higher accuracy in both tasks compared with the group without musical experience while controlling for age and hearing loss. Moreover, a significant interaction was found between group effect and hearing loss for the MBEA, suggesting that musical experience moderates the impact of hearing loss on melodic and rhythm perception abilities. Finally, the amount of musical experience was the most important positive predictor for MBEA accuracy in the M group.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These results suggest that despite age-related hearing loss, older adults with musical experience still benefit from their experience-driven enhancement in melodic, rhythm, and timbre perception. Findings from this study support the notion that music training is beneficial for music perception abilities, providing protection against the impact of presbycusis.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"707-718"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142796599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Improving Real-Time Feedback During Cochlear Implantation: The Auditory Nerve Neurophonic/Cochlear Microphonic Ratio.","authors":"Christofer Bester, Stephen John O'Leary, Frédéric Venail, Andreas Büchner, Tiago Rocha Félix, Wai Kong Lai, Carlos Boccio, Baishakhi Choudhury, Viral Tejani, Emmanuel Mylanus, Marielle Sicard, Thomas Lenarz, Catherine Birman, Frederico Di Lella, J Thomas Roland, Bruce Gantz, Kerrie Plant, Ruth English, Remo Arts, Andy Beynon","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001613","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001613","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objectives: &lt;/strong&gt;Real-time monitoring of cochlear function to predict the loss of residual hearing after cochlear implantation is now possible. Current approaches monitor the cochlear microphonic (CM) during implantation from the electrode at the tip of the implant. A drop in CM response of &gt;30% is associated with poorer hearing outcomes. However, there is prior evidence that CM amplitude can fluctuate in a manner unrelated to hearing trauma, leading to false positives. By monitoring another cochlear response, the auditory nerve neurophonic (ANN), a differentiation between CM drops that result in reduced cochlear output from false positives may be possible. The hypothesis tested in the present work was that ANN/CM ratios measured during a CM drop will increase during drops not associated with postoperative hearing loss.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design: &lt;/strong&gt;Twenty-eight adult participants with known CM drops during implantation were taken from a larger data set. This contains adult cochlear implant candidates scheduled to receive a Cochlear Nucleus cochlear implant with either the slim-straight or slim-modiolar electrode array with preoperative audiometric low-frequency average thresholds of ≤80 dB HL at 500, 750, and 1000 Hz in the ear to be implanted. Patients were recruited from eight international implant sites. Pure-tone audiometry was measured postoperatively and 4 to 6 weeks after implantation. Electrocochleography was measured during and immediately after the implantation of the array in response to a 500-Hz, 6-msec pure-tone pip at 110 dB HL.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;The ANN/CM ratio rose during CM drops in 19 of these patients and decreased in 9. At the follow-up timepoint, patients with a decreasing ANN/CM ratio had a median hearing loss of 29.0 dB, significantly worse than the group with increasing ratio at 13.3 dB ( p = 0.004). Considering only the change in ANN amplitude during a CM drop led to smaller groups (ANN drop during CM drop N = 17, ANN increasing during CM drop N = 6) due to 5 patients having undetectable ANN during the CM drop. Using the ANN alone also led to as poorer prediction of hearing preservation, with median hearing preservation in the ANN increasing group of 12.9 dB, significantly better than the ANN decreasing group of 25 dB ( p = 0.02). The group with a decreasing ANN/CM ratio had maximum CM amplitude immediately after insertion lower than the maximum amplitude reached during insertion (mean maximum postinsertion amplitude of 98% of during-insertion amplitude). In comparison, the ANN/CM ratio increasing group tended to have a larger CM amplitude immediately after insertion (mean maximum CM amplitude postinsertion of 164% of the maximum during-insertion amplitude).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;These data show that the ANN/CM ratio is a measure that can differentiate between patients with CM drops that lead to a loss of residual hearing and those that do not. The ANN/CM ratio is easily measu","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"687-695"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11984549/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142959007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Predictors of Tinnitus Symptom Relief With Hearing Aids in a European Multicenter Study.","authors":"Tabea Schiele, Benjamin Boecking, Amarjargal Nyamaa, Stamatina Psatha, Stefan Schoisswohl, Jorges P Simoes, Juliane Dettling-Papargyris, Javier Aguirre, Nikos Markatos, Rilana Cima, Jose Antonio Lopez-Escamez, Veronika Vielsmeier, Dimitris Kikidis, Winfried Schlee, Berthold Langguth, Birgit Mazurek, Steven C Marcrum","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001624","DOIUrl":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001624","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objectives: &lt;/strong&gt;Hearing aids (HAs) are a widely accepted first-line treatment option for individuals suffering from both hearing loss and chronic tinnitus. Though HAs are highly effective at improving speech understanding, their effectiveness in ameliorating tinnitus symptoms is less clear. In recent years, several investigators have reported on attempts to predict HAs effectiveness on tinnitus symptoms using an array of variables. These included tinnitus attributes (e.g., frequency, loudness, character), audiological characteristics (e.g., degree and configuration of hearing loss), or HA signal processing parameters (e.g., gain, noise reduction processing). The aims of this study were to determine whether (1) HA usage improves tinnitus-related distress and subjective tinnitus loudness and, if so, whether (2) tinnitus frequency, degree of hearing loss, HA-use time, and the accuracy of the HA fitting influence this effect.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Design: &lt;/strong&gt;Participants were recruited as part of the \"Unification of Treatments and Interventions for Tinnitus Patients (UNITI)\" study, a large multicenter randomized controlled trial conducted across five European study sites. Here, we report on the 60 participants with chronic tinnitus and mild-to-moderate hearing loss that were randomized to the HAs-only treatment arm of UNITI. HAs were programmed according to the National Acoustic Laboratories-Nonlinear 2 or Desired Sensation Level ((i/o) v.5) prescriptive formulas and the fitting was verified using in-situ verification. Subsequently, participants underwent a 12-week treatment phase. Improvements in tinnitus-related distress measured with the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI), as well as subjective tinnitus loudness (dB HL), were assessed after 6 and 12 weeks of treatment. Accuracy of the HA fitting was operationalized as the deviation of in-situ measured real ear-aided response from target real ear-aided response parameters, as specified by the respective prescriptive formula.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;Participants' HA-use time averaged 4.8 hr/d (SD 2.4 hr/d) over the 12-week treatment phase. Multilevel regression analyses revealed significant reductions of tinnitus distress scores after 6 and 12 weeks (THI: F (2,156) = 7.80, p &lt; 0.01; TFI: F (2,155) = 8.79, p &lt; 0.01) of treatment, as compared with baseline. After 6 weeks of HA usage, THI scores were decreased by 11.64 points and TFI scores by 12.80 points, on average. There was no further statistically significant reduction in tinnitus distress between 6 and 12 weeks of HA usage (THI: M = 1.75, p = 0.89; TFI: M = -1.58, p = 0.91). Contrary to expectations, none of the included factors predicted these effects. Subjective tinnitus loudness remained unchanged with treatment (M = 1.90; F (1,105) = 0.40, p = 0.53).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;HA usage is associated with reductions in tinnitus-related distress-irrespective of tinnitus attr","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":"796-807"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142924129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Retrospective Comparison of Clinical Characteristics of Post-Traumatic and Idiopathic Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo.","authors":"Minheon Kim, Eun Kyung Jeon, Young Joon Seo, Tae Hoon Kong","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001675","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>This study aimed to assess the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of post-traumatic benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) compared with idiopathic BPPV, with a focus on the impact of trauma severity on clinical outcomes.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>The authors conducted a retrospective analysis at a regional trauma center, comparing 66 patients with post-traumatic BPPV to 105 patients with idiopathic BPPV. Trauma was defined as cases where patients presented to the regional trauma center following an injury. The severity of trauma was categorized based on whether the trauma team was activated. The diagnostic criteria included positional vertigo and nystagmus, as confirmed through standard positional tests. Patients were categorized based on the severity of their trauma and evaluated for the BPPV subtype, frequency of canalith repositioning maneuvers (CRMs) needed for resolution, and recurrence rates.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Patients with post-traumatic BPPV were younger than those with idiopathic BPPV (58.0 ± 15.2 versus 63.0 ± 13.1 yrs; p = 0.024) and showed no significant gender disparity. The most common BPPV subtype in the post-traumatic group was posterior canal BPPV (68.2%), followed by horizontal canal-BPPV (Geo) (22.7%), and horizontal canal-BPPV (Apo) (4.5%). Patients with post-traumatic BPPV required more CRMs for resolution compared with those with idiopathic BPPV (average: 2.0 versus 1.3; p = 0.001); however, the recurrence rates were similar between the two groups. Clinical presentations did not significantly differ between major and minor trauma cases.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Post-traumatic BPPV differed from idiopathic BPPV regarding age distribution, CRM frequency, and subtype proportions, but not regarding recurrence rates. Trauma severity did not significantly alter the clinical course of post-traumatic BPPV, suggesting a uniform approach to BPPV management irrespective of trauma severity. However, diagnosing BPPV after major trauma may be delayed; therefore, early consideration of BPPV in the initial stages of trauma assessment is necessary.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144045095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effect of Speech Material and Scoring Method on Psychometric Curves for Cochlear Implant Users and Typical Hearing Listeners.","authors":"Hendrik Christiaan Stronks, Robin van Deurzen, Paula Louisa Jansen, Jeroen Johannes Briaire, Johan Hubertus Maria Frijns","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001672","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001672","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Cochlear implants (CIs) are the primary treatment for severe-to-profound hearing loss. For CI users, speech intelligibility (SI) is often excellent in quiet yet degrades dramatically in background noise. Scientific and clinical testing of the effects of noise on SI is routinely performed with speech-in-noise tests. The sensitivity of these tests to signal to noise ratio depends on the slope of their psychometric curve. This slope is not always known for CI users, and direct comparisons between typical hearing (TH) listeners and CI users are lacking.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>We present a comparative study of a digit test (DIN), a Matrix sentence test, and an everyday sentence test (LIST) for a group of CI users and TH listeners, with use of word (digit) and sentence (triplet) scoring in the free field. We report descriptive statistics and effect size measures of the psychometric slope and the speech reception threshold (SRT) for each speech test.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>For CI users, the slopes of the psychometric curve were significantly shallower and SRTs significantly higher than those of TH listeners. The shallowest slope was seen with the Matrix test. However, the small variances of the slope and the SRT resulted in effect size estimates that fell between those of the other two tests. The DIN test was associated with steeply sloped psychometric curves with low variance. The scoring method did not substantially affect slopes and SRTs for the DIN test and LIST sentences, but word scoring resulted in shallow slopes and substantially worse SRTs for CI users.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The DIN test stood out in this study as an attractive speech-in-noise test for CI users, with steep slopes and low variance in slopes and SRTs among participants. Digit and keyword scoring appear to be viable options for the DIN test and LIST sentences, respectively, potentially increasing the number of available test items. For the Matrix test, sentence scoring yielded shallow slopes and deteriorated SI, especially for the CI group. We recommend word scoring for the Dutch-Flemish Matrix test.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144043143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Motor Competence in School-Aged Children at Risk of Vestibular Loss: An Overview.","authors":"Ruth Van Hecke, Ingeborg Dhooge, Cleo Dhondt, Sarie Martens, Marieke Sucaet, Saartje Vanaudenaerde, Lotte Rombaut, Els De Leenheer, Helen Van Hoecke, Frederik J A Deconinck, Leen Maes","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001659","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001659","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>On the basis of research and clinical experience, our otorhinolaryngology department developed an extensive protocol including auditory, vestibular, and motor assessments for all children at risk of vestibular disorders. The purpose of this study was to present the outcomes of this clinical protocol in a school-aged population and to provide an overview of the main clinical features and the motor competence of the children at risk of vestibular dysfunctions.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Data collection for this study took place between October 2017 and October 2021. During this timeframe, all school-aged children (4.0 to 16.9 years old), who were either in follow-up or referred to our otorhinolaryngology department at the Ghent University Hospital because of a risk of vestibular deficits, and who expressed a willingness to participate in the study, were included. Children were deemed at risk if they had (1) vestibular complaints (i.e., vertigo, instability, dizziness), (2) sensorineural hearing loss (with or without cochlear implant[s]), (3) a medical history with ototoxic drugs, (4) inner ear malformations defined by imaging, (5) a head trauma, (6) genetic mutations linked to vestibular loss, or (7) evidence of prior infections that are related to vestibular loss in the literature (e.g., meningitis, congenital cytomegalovirus infection).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Among the 117 participants (59 boys; 7.3 ± 3.1 years), four groups could be identified: those with combined vestibular and hearing loss (n = 47), with isolated vestibular loss (n = 5) or hearing loss (n = 33), and those without audiovestibular deficits (n = 32). Group differences revealed diminished fine motor skills, as well as lower balance and total MABC-2 scores in the group with combined vestibular and auditory dysfunctions (p < 0.001), particularly in children with severe bilateral vestibular deficits. Moreover, the majority (38/47; 80.9%) were referred for additional monitoring of their motor functioning and/or for physical therapy.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This first large-scale study encompassing school-aged children at risk of vestibular disorders revealed a diverse clinical presentation among them. Considering crucial trends and influential factors, the study emphasized the importance of adopting a comprehensive approach, including auditory, vestibular, and motor tests, for assessing and managing pediatric vestibular concerns, particularly in children with combined vestibular and auditory deficits.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144027023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex Dysconjugacy Associated With Central Cause of Dizziness.","authors":"Anand K Bery, Ying-Chi Hong, Yu-Hung Kuo, Tzu-Pu Chang","doi":"10.1097/AUD.0000000000001663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001663","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Most current video head impulse test (vHIT) systems take monocular recordings, which is sufficient to identify a peripheral vestibulopathy. Given central ocular motor abnormalities can cause dysconjugacy between the eyes, binocular vHIT may help further identify central/dangerous lesions. Here, we examined the utility of binocular vHIT to differentiate central from peripheral vestibulopathy.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>We enrolled three groups: healthy volunteers, consecutive patients with peripheral vestibulopathy, and consecutive patients with central vestibulopathy, respectively. All subjects underwent binocular vHIT, with vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) gains of each eye recorded individually. We calculated various measures of VOR gain conjugacy, including intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), the VOR difference (VORD), and the VOR ratio between the two eyes. The absolute values of VORD (|VORD|) were compared across groups.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We enrolled 48 healthy controls, 37 patients with peripheral vestibulopathy, and 17 patients with central vestibulopathy. In rightward impulses, the ICC was 0.89 in controls, 0.98 in the peripheral group, and 0.78 in the central group. In leftward impulses, the ICC was 0.76 in controls, 0.93 in the peripheral group, and 0.71 in the central group. The |VORD| was higher in the central group (mean ± SD: 0.12 ± 0.16) compared to the peripheral group (0.05 ± 0.04, p = 0.02) and healthy controls (0.05 ± 0.03, p = 0.02).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Binocular vHIT can measure the VOR gain consistency between two eyes. A finding of high-degree VOR inconsistency should increase clinical suspicion for central vestibulopathy.</p>","PeriodicalId":55172,"journal":{"name":"Ear and Hearing","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144053386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}