International Journal of Audiology最新文献

Objective: To summarise the air travel experiences of adults with hearing loss, identifying barriers, facilitators, and implications for accessibility.

Design: A scoping review guided by Arksey and O'Malley's framework. Relevant databases (Medline, CINAHL, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) and gray literature were searched. Two independent reviewers screened the titles, abstracts, and full texts based on the inclusion criteria. Extracted data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Study sample: Ten studies met the inclusion criteria, originating from the USA, Australia, Brazil, and Taiwan, and published between 2008 and 2023.

Results: Three main themes emerged: communication barriers, accessibility challenges, and emotional impacts. These themes were mapped across the four stages of the air travel journey: pre-travel, airport, in-flight, and post-flight. Key facilitators included real-time digital updates, improved signage, travel companions, and assistive technologies.

Conclusions: Adults with hearing loss face barriers during air travel that affect their travel experience and emotional well-being. While some facilitators were identified, there remains a need for increased awareness and implementation of inclusive practices within the aviation industry. Future research should explore the effectiveness of policy interventions and evaluate airport and airline compliance with accessibility guidelines.

Objective: To develop a reliable objective method to measure temporal resolution thresholds using Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) with statistical response detection methods.

Design: The ABR paradigms "Two Clicks (2C)" and "Temporal Notched Noise with Click (TNNC)" were evaluated for measuring objective temporal resolution thresholds. Statistical methods were used for ABR detection. Test-retest reliability of both ABR paradigms was also assessed. For comparison, a Gaps in Noise test and psychometric TNNC paradigm measured behavioural thresholds from the same subjects.

Study sample: 23 normal-hearing participants in the main study, and an additional 10 in the test-retest experiment, aged 20-35 years.

Results: Objective temporal resolution thresholds averaged 4.04 ms for the 2C paradigm and 3.21 ms for the TNNC paradigm. Group-level data showed reduced ABR amplitude and detection as gap durations approached threshold, whilst individual ABR amplitudes fluctuated across gap durations. Behavioural thresholds averaged 1.49 and 2.22 ms. In the test-retest experiment, TNNC showed moderate repeatability, while 2C had slight, non-significant repeatability (measured by Cohen's Kappa).

Conclusions: While these objective approaches show promise for measuring temporal resolution at a group level, their application in individuals remains challenging due to high variability across subjects. The TNNC paradigm demonstrated better performance in terms of ABR repeatability.

Objective: To psychoacoustically characterise a corpus of Danish sentences that have been developed for speech-in-noise experiments and to assess the influence of speech intelligibility scoring methods and linguistic syntax on the resulting psychometric functions.

Design: Psychometric functions are estimated for each sentence in stationary speech-shaped noise using the method of constant stimuli and five signal-to-noise ratios from -10 to 0 dB.

Study sample: Sentences from one of the four talkers in the corpus were presented pseudo-randomly to 60 normal hearing participants so that each sentence was heard by 20 different participants.

Results: The inflection point of the psychometric function was affected by both the scoring rule applied and by the number of scoring units per sentence, but not by the linguistic syntax. The slope of the psychometric function was significantly affected by only the number of scoring units. The mean psychometric function based on one of the scoring methods revealed a speech reception threshold (${\text{SRT}}_{50}$) of -4.8 dB and a slope of 11.7%/dB.

Conclusions: The psychometric functions of the sentences are modifiable depending on the scoring method applied. Moreover, the linguistic variation of the syntax present in the corpus does not lead to systematic changes in the psychometric functions.

Objective: To assess whether bedside parental education improves the loss to follow-up (LTF) rate after undergoing universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) in Thailand.

Design: A randomised controlled trial.

Study sample: Parents of newborns who did not pass the first-stage hearing screening were included and randomly allocated to the control and intervention groups. For parents in the control group, nurses or nurse assistants provided verbal information on the UNHS at bedside. For parents in the intervention group, a physician provided detailed verbal and written information at bedside. LTF was defined as any referred newborns who did not attend the rescreening, diagnostic, or intervention stage by 1, 3 or 6 months of age.

Results: Among 5,148 newborns, 271 who did not pass the screening were included. The LTF rate in the intervention group (10.37%, 14/135 participants) was significantly lower than that in the control group (21.32%, 29/136 participants) in the intention-to-treat analysis (p = 0.021, 95% confidence interval: 1.6-20.3%). Nine and five infants with hearing loss in the intervention and control groups, respectively, were identified.

Conclusion: Bedside parental education provided by the physician, along with written information, could improve the LTF rate.This study was registered in the Thai Clinical Trials Registry (TCTR20210902008).

Objective: Identify factors predicting work capacity among patients with tinnitus and hyperacusis.

Design and study sample: This study employed a cross-sectional design, collecting data from four Norwegian audiology clinics (N = 80) and two Norwegian rehabilitation centres (N = 47). The patients in this study were invited to complete a web-based questionnaire.

Results: This study found significant positive correlations between levels of tinnitus, hyperacusis, and mental distress (rs in the range .51 - .74). Logistic regression models showed that reduced work capacity was predicted by both tinnitus (OR = 1.07) and hyperacusis (OR = 1.13), and that hyperacusis predicted work absence (OR = 1.08).

Conclusion: The findings demonstrate a moderate association between tinnitus and hyperacusis (r = .51), with both conditions affecting the work capacity of more than 50% of participants in the study. Moreover, the results indicate that the severity of tinnitus and hyperacusis is directly related to impaired work capacity and higher rates of work absence.

Objective: This study aimed to provide normative ranges of Chinese smartphone-based digits-in-noise (DIN) test results, to explore the association between speech reception threshold (SRT) and pure-tone average (PTA) threshold, and to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the Chinese DIN.

Design: Chinese-speaking adult subjects with varying types, symmetry and degrees of hearing loss, were recruited. All participants completed a pure-tone audiometric hearing test and DIN test with dichotic and antiphasic stimulus presentation.

Study sample: The overall sample consisted of 191 subjects, 24 with normal hearing and 167 with hearing loss.

Results: There was a positive correlation between antiphasic DIN SRTs and PTA thresholds. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) were calculated based on the classification of poorer ears. When SRT was ≥ -15.8 dB, it suggested the possible presence of mild or more severe hearing loss; when SRT was ≥ -14.2 dB, it suggested the possible presence of moderate or more severe hearing loss.

Conclusion: The Chinese DIN SRT showed a highly positive correlation with PTA and exhibited high sensitivity and specificity in detecting hearing loss. Poorer ear PTA was the primary predictor of the antiphasic DIN SRT. The present results verify the validity of the Chinese DIN in its purpose of hearing screening.

Objective: To investigate the effects of earplug type and noise exposure level on textile workers' personal attenuation rating (PAR).

Design: Initial and follow-up visits were conducted at a 17-month interval. At each visit, a baseline HPD fit test was performed using either a 3M foam or pre-molded earplug, as chosen by the workers. Workers who failed to meet targeted levels were trained and retested. Once they failed again, the other earplug was selected, and training was provided until they achieved the PAR target.

Study sample: 192 textile workers into three noise exposure level groups (low, medium, high).

Results: The median baseline PAR was 10 dB at the initial visits and 13 dB at the follow-up visits, and obtained by foam earplug users was 20 dB, which was higher than that obtained by pre-molded earplug users [12 dB (95% CI, 10-15 dB)]. The highest median baseline PAR was obtained by the high noise level group, followed by the median and low noise level groups. Training significantly increased the PAR.

Conclusions: Multiple types of earplugs need to be offered to workers to deal with individual differences in attenuation, preferences, and exposure levels. Training and stricter compliance policies can improve HPD use and fitting, contributing to better hearing health.

Objective: Well-balanced, semantically predictable sentence materials do not exist in the Slovak language. The primary goal of the current study was to develop and validate a set of sentences in stationary, speech-weighted noise that are equally difficult at the 50% point of a performance intensity curve.

Design: Listening tests were performed using a fixed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), encompassing five different SNR levels. The selected sentences were validated using an adaptive method.

Study sample: Reference data were obtained from native Slovakian adults with normal hearing (85 participants in the first phase and 37 participants in the second phase).

Results: The study yielded 18 sets of 10 sentences with an average fitted SRT (at 50% point) in noise of -4.5 dB SNR (SD = ±0.6 dB). The average slope of the performance intensity function was 14.4%/dB (SD = ±3.8%/dB).

Conclusions: The Slovakian sentence test material can assess speech understanding in noise across various clinical and non-clinical applications.

Objective: This study used the frequency following response (FFR) as an objective measure to understand the effects of varying spectral cues on brainstem neural representation in response to noise-vocoded speech, and describe the relationship between behavioural vowel recognition and the FFR peak F0 amplitudes.

Design: A within-subjects design was used to compare behavioural vowel recognition using the Iowa vowel stimuli and FFRs in response to a/da/stimulus in an unprocessed condition as well as five noise-vocoded conditions with varying numbers of simulated channels (1, 2, 4, 8, and 16).

Study sample: Fifteen adult listeners with normal hearing participated.

Results: Behavioural vowel recognition performance improved significantly when the number of channels increased from 2-4, 4-8, 8-16, and 16 to unprocessed. However, no significant increases in FFR peak F0 amplitudes were seen across any condition. Additionally, no relationship was observed between F0 amplitudes and behavioural vowel recognition scores.

Conclusions: Improvements in noise-vocoded speech perception are driven by increases in spectral resolution (i.e., channel number), whereas FFRs are driven by temporal periodicity in vocoded signal waveforms. Consequently, FFRs may grossly capture neural phase-locking to the temporal features of vocoded signals but may not be a useful index for understanding how changes in spectral resolution impact perception.

Objective: This study investigated whether the SONNET 2 audio processor's ambient noise reduction (ANR) algorithm improves speech recognition and listening effort in cochlear implant (CI) users as a function of different noise signals.

Design: Speech recognition and listening effort were measured in the presence of four different noise signals, including stationary and fluctuating noise, and including a speech masker. Speech was presented from the front (S0) and noise from two sources from the back (N ± 135).

Study sample: 20 adult CI users.

Results: With the ANR, speech recognition significantly improved in the presence of one stationary noise and in the presence of one fluctuating noise. The ANR had no significant effect on listening effort.

Conclusions: When activating the ANR algorithm of the SONNET 2 audio processor, speech recognition improved in some conditions. Listening effort was equal in all conditions. In corresponding everyday situations, it can be recommended to use the ANR algorithm.