The Swedish hearing in noise test for children, HINT-C

Heléne Hjertman,Mathias Hällgren,Elina Mäki-Torkko,Stefan Stenfelt

doi:10.1016/j.ijporl.2020.110509

Heléne Hjertman, Mathias Hällgren + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2020.110509

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Abstract

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a Swedish version of the Hearing In Noise Test for Children (HINT-C). DesignIn the first part, the Swedish HINT lists for adults was evaluated by children at three signal to noise ratios (SNRs), −4, −1 and +2 dB. Lists including sentences not reaching 50% recognition at +2 dB SNR were excluded and the rest constituted the HINT-C. In the second part, HINT-C was evaluated in children and adults using an adaptive procedure to determine the SNR for 50% correctly repeated sentences.Study Sample In the first part, 112 children aged 6–11 years participated while another 28 children and 9 adults participated in the second part. ResultsEight out of 24 tested adult HINT lists did not reach the inclusion criteria. The remaining 16 lists formed the Swedish HINT-C which was evaluated in children 6–11 years old. A regression analysis showed that the predicted SNR threshold (dB) was 0.495–0.365*age (years + months/12) and the children reached the mean adult score at an age of 10.5 years. ConclusionsA Swedish version of HINT-C was developed and evaluated in children six years and older.

Highlights

Audiometric tests based on speech signals are useful in the clinic for diagnosing a hearing impairment, assessing hearing aid fittings, and evaluating the benefit of other assistive listening technology [1,2]
There is a clear trend of better speech recognition as a function of age where the speech recognition improves with age for all three signal to noise ratios (SNRs)
When the results were analyzed with a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), the Mauchlys test of sphericity was significant for the SNR [χ2(2) = 10.501, p = 0.005] and the degrees of freedom was adjusted according to GreenhouseGeisser

Summary

Introduction

Audiometric tests based on speech signals are useful in the clinic for diagnosing a hearing impairment, assessing hearing aid fittings, and evaluating the benefit of other assistive listening technology [1,2]. During the development of such test, there are several aspects to consider, such as the target signal, type of maskers, and listening envi ronments. All of these aspects influence the performance on the test, especially for listeners with hearing loss. Children’s learning environments, where they spend much of their time, are often noisy and challenging hearing speech [2,3,4]. It is important during a hearing aid fitting, which is most often based on pure tone audiometry, to assess the speech recognition in noise with the hearing aids. The number of studies using sentences in noise to assess children’s ability to hear in noisy environments are limited

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Discussion

Conclusion