American Journal of Audiology最新文献

Purpose: Audiological services are underused, possibly because patients need to drive long distances to see a provider. In this study, we measured the association of drive times to the nearest audiologist with population density, income, ethnicity, race, and distance to the nearest audiology graduate program.

Method: Drive times for each census block group to the nearest audiologist were measured using census data, the National Provider Identifier Registry, and a geographic analyzing tool called ArcGIS for all block groups within the United States. The association between drive times and population density, income, ethnicity, race, and audiology program distance was evaluated with a population density-matched case-control study and multiple linear regression analyses.

Results: Approximately 5.29 million Americans need to drive at least 1 hr to visit their closest audiologist. The 10% most rural-dwelling Americans drive an average of 33.8 min. The population density-matched case-control study demonstrated that percent below poverty, percent identifying as Hispanic, and travel times to the nearest audiology program were all significantly higher in census block groups with high drive times to the nearest audiologist. An average of 7.96% of individuals in census block groups with low drive times identified as Hispanic, but 18.8% identified as Hispanic in high drive time groups. The multiple linear regression showed that the effect of demographics and distance to the nearest audiology program was highest in rural areas. In both analyses, adjusting for poverty did not drastically change the effect of percent identifying as Hispanic on drive times.

Conclusions: Long drive times restrict access to audiological care for those who live in rural areas. This restriction disproportionately affects those in rural areas who identify as Hispanic or have low income.

Purpose: Cauliflower ear in wrestlers can lead to hearing impairment. This study primarily aims to assess the hearing of wrestlers with bilateral cauliflower ears and determine their external ear canal (EEC) resonance frequencies. Our second aim is to evaluate their hearing quality, speech, and spatial perception.

Method: This study included 28 male wrestlers aged 18-35 years with bilateral cauliflower ears, as well as 27 male participants in the control group with no wrestling history. The participants' hearing thresholds were determined across the frequency range of 125-16000 Hz for air-conduction and 500-4000 Hz for bone conduction. EEC resonance frequencies were measured. Additionally, all participants completed the Turkish version of the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) questionnaire.

Results: Wrestlers with cauliflower ears exhibited significantly higher hearing thresholds, particularly at frequencies above 4000 Hz (p < .05). Analysis of EEC resonance showed a shift to higher frequencies in the second resonance peak of the right ear (p < .001) and the first resonance peak of the left ear (p = .045). SSQ scores revealed that wrestlers had higher spatial perception (p = .046), hearing quality (p = .004), and general scores (p = .042) in comparison to the control group.

Conclusions: Blunt traumas in wrestlers, leading to cauliflower ear, can result in hearing loss. Moreover, deformities in the external ear affect the resonance frequencies of the EEC. Therefore, it is crucial to advocate for the use of ear protection equipment among wrestlers. When fitting hearing aids, attention should be given to changes in the EEC resonance frequency.

Purpose: Inspired by a preliminary survey of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) literature conducted by Friberg et al. (2014), the current study aimed to expand the original study's findings-that SoTL was rarely published in the communication sciences and disorders (CSD) literature from 2009 to 2013-to the subsequent 8-year period (2014-2021). The latter period was of particular relevance considering the dissolution of one American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)-affiliated publication and the addition of another non-ASHA-affiliated publication during that time.

Method: Ten peer-reviewed CSD journals and the articles published in them were identified via a survey of the literature that used narrowly defined criteria developed in collaboration with a librarian. Five trained CSD graduate student raters compared a definition of SoTL to article abstracts to determine whether each should have been categorized as SoTL. Part 1 of the study investigated an 8-year time span, Part 2 investigated the remaining nine journals in the subsequent 5 years, and Part 3 investigated publication rates of SoTL in Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders (TLCSD) alone.

Results: Part 1 of the study revealed that publication rates of SoTL were extremely low in the 10 surveyed CSD journals in the 8-year time span investigated. A similar and diminishing trend was found in Part 2. Even smaller percentages of journals were dedicated to SoTL. Part 3 confirmed that relatively large amounts of CSD-specific SoTL have been published in TLCSD since its inception in 2017.

Conclusions: As of 2021, SoTL articles continued to be uncommonly published in CSD journals. Until recently, scholarly teachers attempting to apply SoTL in the classroom had limited resources. Beginning in 2017, TLCSD has provided an outlet for SoTL, whereas other CSD journals seem to have published less of it. Reform of publication, peer review, tenure, and promotion policies and procedures is called for so that SoTL might be included as a valid scientific endeavor.

Purpose: The Minimum Speech Test Battery (MSTB) for adults was introduced in 1996 (Nilsson et al., 1996) and subsequently updated in 2011 (Advanced-Bionics et al., 2011). The MSTB has been widely used by clinicians as a guide for cochlear implant (CI) candidacy evaluations and to document post-operative speech recognition performance. Due to changes in candidacy over the past 10 years, a revision to the MSTB was needed.

Method: In 2022, the Institute for Cochlear Implant Training (ICIT) recruited a panel of expert CI audiologists to update and revise the MSTB. This panel utilized a modified Delphi consensus process to revise the test battery and to improve its applicability considering recent changes in CI care.

Results: This resulted in the MTSB-Version 3 (MSTB-3), which includes test protocols for identifying not only traditional CI candidates but also possible candidates for electric-acoustic stimulation and patients with single-sided deafness and asymmetric hearing loss. The MSTB-3 provides information that supplements the earlier versions of the MSTB, such as recommendations of when to refer patients for a CI, recommended patient-reported outcome measures, considerations regarding the use of cognitive screeners, and sample report templates for clinical documentation of pre- and post-operative care. Electronic versions of test stimuli, along with all the materials described above, will be available to clinicians via the ICIT website (https://www.cochlearimplanttraining.com).

Conclusion: The goal of the MSTB-3 is to be an evidence-based test battery that will facilitate a streamlined standard of care for adult CI candidates and recipients that will be widely used by CI clinicians.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate conversation hearing with an adaptive beamforming hearing aid that supports adaptive tracking of multiple talkers in an ecologically valid, real-world food court environment in a busy mall.

Method: Twenty older adult experienced hearing aid wearers with sensorineural hearing loss were fitted in the lab with binaural receiver-in-the-canal style hearing aids set with two programs, each having a different beamforming strategy. The participant and two researchers then met in a moderately noisy and reverberant food court at a local mall where the participant was asked to listen to a conversation between the two researchers. Participants rated the extent of their agreement with 10 positively worded statements specific to the conversation twice, once for each program. Participants then provided program-preference ratings for seven different aspects of a conversation during which the programs were switched back and forth by the researcher, so that participants were unaware of the condition to which they were listening.

Results: Real-world subjective ratings for all domains resulted in positive values on average for both programs. Pairwise comparisons indicated that the intervention algorithm had higher absolute ratings on five of the 10 criteria including understanding, clarity, focus, listening effort, and background noise. Ratings for preference between programs indicated a significant preference for the intervention algorithm for all seven criteria.

Conclusions: In a real-world setting, the use of hearing aids with separate processing of sounds from the front and back hemisphere provided positive subjective ratings. However, following a group conversation with multiple conversation partners, improvements in the algorithm to account for the locations of interlocutors and the natural head turning of the hearing aid wearer that occurs during a conversation by adding and controlling multiple adaptive beams in the front hemisphere significantly influenced preference for all aspects rated.

Purpose: Clinical audiologists typically assume that headphones and insert phones will produce comparable results when they are used to conduct speech-in-noise or other audiological tests; however, this may not always be the case. Here, we show that there are significant differences in the scores that previous studies have reported for headphone and insert-phone transducers on the Words-in-Noise (WIN) Test, and discuss the possibility that the variations in high-frequency output that are allowable under the speech source specifications of American National Standards Institute S3.6 might be contributing to transducer-dependent differences in performance for the WIN and other tests that are presented through the auxiliary input channels of clinical audiometers.

Method: A literature review was conducted to identify articles that reported WIN Test results for both listeners with normal hearing and with hearing impairment and specified the type of transducer (insert or TDH-50) used for the data collection.

Results: Among the 19 included studies, participants with normal hearing using inserts exhibited systematically worse WIN Test scores compared to those using TDH-50 headphones, while participants with hearing loss showed comparable average scores across transducer types.

Conclusions: The results highlight the importance of considering transducer type when interpreting WIN Test outcomes, particularly when comparing to normative scores obtained from individuals with normal hearing. Although further research is needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms driving differences in test performance across transducer types, these findings underscore the need for standardized test administration protocols and careful documentation of transducer type when administering speech-in-noise tests for clinical or research applications.

Purpose: An increase in the 1000/500 Hz frequency amplitude ratio (FAR) of the cervical and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMP and oVEMP, respectively) may serve as a potential biomarker for diagnosing Meniere's disease (MD). However, the aging process can also result in an increased FAR for VEMPs. In older patients, distinguishing whether changes in VEMP FAR are due to MD or aging processes becomes difficult. We aimed to investigate the effects of age on VEMP FARs and establish a FAR-normative range for different age groups.

Method: cVEMP and oVEMP were recorded from a total of 106 participants grouped as young, middle-aged, and older adults using air-conducted tone bursts at 500, 750, and 1000 Hz at 125 dB pSPL. The FAR was calculated for the cVEMP and oVEMP for the following frequencies: FAR1 = 1000/500, FAR2 = 1000/750, and FAR3 = 750/500.

Results: A significant age-related effect was observed on the cVEMP FAR. Although the oVEMP FAR showed an increasing trend with age, it was not statistically significant. Age-based normative FAR values are provided.

Conclusions: Drawing from the normative FAR from this study, there is evidence that the existing MD diagnostic criteria would misidentify a considerable number of older adults. Therefore, to reduce false positives, we recommend a more stringent cVEMP and oVEMP FAR criterion in older adults.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the hearing health care experience of satisfied and dissatisfied consumers as reported on Google reviews.

Method: Using qualitative thematic analysis, open-text responses from Google regarding hearing health care clinics across 40 U.S. cities were examined. During the original search, 13,168 reviews were identified. Purposive sampling led to a total of 8,420 five-star reviews and 321 one-star reviews. The sample consisted of 500 five-star (satisfied) and 234 one-star (dissatisfied) reviews, describing experiences with audiology clinics, excluding reviews related to ear, nose, and throat services; other medical specialties; and those not relevant to hearing health care.

Results: Satisfied and dissatisfied consumer reviews yielded nuanced dimensions of the hearing health care consumer experience, which were grouped into distinct domains, themes, and subthemes. Six and seven domains were identified from the satisfied and dissatisfied reviews, encompassing 23 and 26 themes, respectively. The overall experience domain revealed emotions ranging from contentment and gratitude to dissatisfaction and waning loyalty. The clinical outcomes domain highlights the pivotal contribution of well-being and hearing outcomes to the consumer experience, while the standard of care domain underscores shared expectations for punctuality, person-centered care, and efficient communication. Facility quality, professional competence, and inclusive care were also highlighted across positive and negative reviews.

Conclusions: Findings indicate dimensions of satisfied and dissatisfied hearing health care consumer experiences, identifying areas for potential service refinement. These consumer experiences inform person-centric service delivery in hearing health care.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess preschool children's hearing-related quality of life and to introduce the scale, originally titled "Preschool Hearing Environments and Reflections on Quality of Life Questionnaire" (Preschool HEAR-QL), to the literature through Turkish adaption, validity, and reliability analyses.

Method: Our study included 210 children aged 2-6 years: 110 with hearing loss (56 cochlear implant users and 54 hearing aid users) and 100 with normal hearing. Demographic data were collected and then the Preschool HEAR-QL, which was translated into Turkish, was administered twice at 15-day intervals. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine whether the factor structure found in the original scale development study was confirmed in our sample (construct validity). Cronbach's alpha, intraclass correlation scores, and the test-retest method were used to assess the scale's reliability as the findings were analyzed using paired samples t tests.

Results: The children with hearing loss had lower scores than their normal-hearing peers, and the difference was significant in the subdomains of behavior and attention, hearing environments, and communication. The subscale of the Preschool Period Listening Environments and their Reflections on Quality of Life Scale consists of 23 items, and Cronbach's alpha value was found as 0.922 in the first application and 0.926 in the second application (high reliability). In the model established for validity analysis, χ²/df = 2.156, root-mean-square error of approximation = 0.074, standard root-mean-square residual = 0.078, goodness-of-fit index = 0.830, adjusted goodness-of-fit index = 0.789, comparative fit index = 0.895, and Tucker-Lewis index = 0.881 (good model fit). In terms of test-retest reliability, the correlation between the two measurements was 0.837, and there was no statistical difference between the test-retest scores (p = .15).

Conclusion: The Turkish version of the Preschool HEAR-QL scale was proven to be a valid and reliable scale for assessing the hearing-related quality of life of children aged 2-6 years.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25236949.

Purpose: The diagnosis of auditory processing disorder (APD) is controversial particularly due to the influence of higher order factors of language and cognition on the diagnostic APD testing. As a result, there might be a need for testing for other domains (e.g., cognition) along with conducting the diagnostic APD testing to rule out the influence of other domains. In order to make recommendations on whether cognitive testing is needed along with the auditory processing testing, as a starting point, the current study was conducted to examine the relationship between cognitive abilities and basic auditory processing in young adults.

Method: A total of 38 young adults with normal audiometric thresholds between 250 and 8000 Hz participated in this study. They were tested on their executive function, language, processing speed, working memory, and episodic memory components of cognitive testing and tests for temporal fine structure and spectrotemporal sensitivity for auditory processing testing.

Results: No significant correlation was found between the cognitive tests and the tests for basic auditory processing in young adults.

Conclusions: These findings present contrast to the existing findings in children and older adults where a stronger correlation between cognitive abilities and auditory processing has been found. The current findings suggest that testing for cognitive abilities may not be needed when testing for basic auditory processing in young adults.