Abstract

Speech-perception testing is essential for monitoring outcomes with a hearing aid or cochlear implant (CI). However, clinical care is time-consuming and often challenging with an increasing number of clients. A potential approach to alleviating some clinical care and possibly making room for other outcome measures is to employ technologies that assess performance in the home environment. In this study, we investigate 3 different speech perception indices in the same 40 CI users: phoneme identification (vowels and consonants), digits in noise (DiN) and sentence recognition in noise (SiN). The first two tasks were implemented on a tablet and performed multiple times by each client in their home environment, while the sentence task was administered at the clinic. Speech perception outcomes in the same forty CI users showed that DiN assessed at home can serve as an alternative to SiN assessed at the clinic. DiN scores are in line with the SiN ones by 3–4 dB improvement and are useful to monitor performance at regular intervals and to detect changes in auditory performance. Phoneme identification in quiet also explains a significant part of speech perception in noise, and provides additional information on the detectability and discriminability of speech cues. The added benefit of the phoneme identification task, which also proved to be easy to administer at home, is the information transmission analysis in addition to the summary score. Performance changes for the different indices can be interpreted by comparing against measurement error and help to target personalized rehabilitation. Altogether, home-based speech testing is reliable and proves powerful to complement care in the clinic for CI users.

Highlights

  • Speech perception assessment is a cornerstone of audiological rehabilitation (Boothroyd, 1994)

  • Participants are ranked according to increasing sentence recognition in noise (SiN) scores determined at the end of the 16week trial

  • digits in noise (DiN) scores are in line with the SiN ones by 3–4 dB improvement

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Summary

Introduction

Speech perception assessment is a cornerstone of audiological rehabilitation (Boothroyd, 1994) It is usually assessed in the clinic with meaningful words and sentences in quiet and (sometimes) in noise. An increasing number of people are using their smartphones or tablets for healthcare assessment, and home-based testing could be used to monitor potential changes in hearing performance and provide guidance for audiological rehabilitation. Such an approach may be good for the clinic (reduced workload/more testing) and enhance the user’s self-efficacy

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