Abstract
Current clinical strategies to assess benefits from hearing aids (HAs) are based on self-reported questionnaires and speech-in-noise (SIN) tests; which require behavioural cooperation. Instead, objective measures based on Auditory Brainstem Responses (ABRs) to speech stimuli would not require the individuals' cooperation. Here, we re-analysed an existing dataset to predict behavioural measures with speech-ABRs using regression trees. Ninety-two HA users completed a self-reported questionnaire (SSQ-Speech) and performed two aided SIN tests: sentences in noise (BKB-SIN) and vowel-consonant-vowels (VCV) in noise. Speech-ABRs were evoked by a 40 ms [da] and recorded in 2x2 conditions: aided vs. unaided and quiet vs. background noise. For each recording condition, two sets of features were extracted: 1) amplitudes and latencies of speech-ABR peaks, 2) amplitudes and latencies of speech-ABR F0 encoding. Two regression trees were fitted for each of the three behavioural measures with either feature set and age, digit-span forward and backward, and pure tone average (PTA) as possible predictors. The PTA was the only predictor in the SSQ-Speech trees. In the BKB-SIN trees, performance was predicted by the aided latency of peak F in quiet for participants with PTAs between 43 and 61 dB HL. In the VCV trees, performance was predicted by the aided F0 encoding latency and the aided amplitude of peak VA in quiet for participants with PTAs ≤ 47 dB HL. These findings indicate that PTA was more informative than any speech-ABR measure, as these were relevant only for a subset of the participants. Therefore, speech-ABRs evoked by a 40 ms [da] are not a clinical predictor of behavioural measures in HA users.
Highlights
One of the overarching goals of research in the audiology/hearing sciences is to develop objective measures to assess hearing aid (HA) outcome and benefits
The participants were 92 adult HA users (38 men) with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), in the age range 18 to 60 years, with mean (SD) of 50.35 (9.07) years and with mean (SD) of 42.96 (13.58) PTA
Scatter plots of the dependent variables as a function of PTA, the amplitudes and latencies of F0 encoding and speech-Auditory Brainstem Responses (ABRs) peaks are in the supplement (Figs 2–8 in S1 File), these reveal that relationships between the behavioural measures and several speech-ABR peaks or F0 encoding cannot be explained by simple linear models
Summary
The aim of this study was to explore, within a non-linear approach, if features of the speech-ABR were significant predictors of behavioural measures. Since the HA outcomes and benefits are measured with SIN performance, which, in turn, we aimed to predict with speech-ABRs, the aided speech-in-noise measures were used separately as dependent variables
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