Abstract
This work evaluated the feasibility and reliability of remotely assessing masked speech recognition and the binaural intelligibility level difference (BILD) in children. Participants were 28 children (6–17 years) and 11 adults (22–45 years) with self-reported normal hearing. A three-alternative forced-choice word recognition task was completed using participants' personal hardware (headphones and computer) and custom software that uploaded results to a central database. Results demonstrate that assessment of masked speech recognition and the BILD is feasible and generally reliable in a remote setting. Variability of results across individuals would likely have been reduced by distributing or specifying appropriate headphones.
Highlights
The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility and reliability of a three-alternative forced-choice (3AFC) word recognition procedure for remote assessment of the binaural intelligibility level difference (BILD) in children
speech recognition threshold (SRT) improved with increasing child age in both the M0T0 and M0Tp conditions, and the mean BILD increased from 3 dB for 4- to 6-year-olds to 5 dB for adults
2% of the desired data were missing, in most cases due to failure to upload to Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap)
Summary
The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility and reliability of a three-alternative forced-choice (3AFC) word recognition procedure for remote assessment of the binaural intelligibility level difference (BILD) in children. A BILD of 5–8 dB has been reported for adults with normal hearing when target words are presented in a broadband noise masker (e.g., Licklider 1948; Johansson and Arlinger, 2002; Goverts and Houtgast, 2010). Koopmans et al (2018) evaluated the BILD in a group of 112 children, 4–12 years of age, and 33 adults, all with normal hearing. SRTs improved with increasing child age in both the M0T0 and M0Tp conditions, and the mean BILD increased from 3 dB for 4- to 6-year-olds to 5 dB for adults. Data indicate a positive MLD for children as young as 4 to 5 years of age, this effect is not as large as observed for adults (e.g., Hall and Grose 1990). Compared to the MLD, the BILD may be a more promising method for evaluating binaural hearing in children because speech stimuli might maintain a child’s interest longer than pure tones, can be illustrated and incorporated into a picturepointing task, and have greater ecological validity than pure tones
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