Sounds Perception Test Research Articles

Reliability and Validity of Scores on the Slosson Auditory Perception Skills Screener

Psychometric characteristics of the Slosson Auditory Perception Skills Screener were studied using three independent samples of boys and girls ages 5-10 years (N= 1,170). Internal consistency of scores ranged from .83 to .90 for the total scale, while 30-day test-retest reliability was .82 (n=58). A convergent validity coefficient between the Slosson Auditory Perception Skills Screener and Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills-Revised Total Score was .59 (n=67, p<.05). Thus, scores derived from administration of the Slosson Auditory Perception Skills Screener had adequate internal consistency and temporal stability, as well as good convergent validity.

Cochlear implantation in children with Waardenburg syndrome

Waardenburg syndrome is an autosomal-dominant trait resulting from mutations occurring in different genes. It is often characterized by varying degrees of: congenital hearing loss; dystopia canthorum; synophrys; broad nasal root; depigmentation of hair (white forelock), skin or both; and heterochromic or hypochromic irides. A retrospective case study was done to assess speech perception, speech production, general intelligence and educational setting in six profoundly hearing-impaired children with Waardenburg syndrome (four with type I, one with type II and one with type III) ranging in age from two years to 14 years, seven months (mean = six years, six months). None of the patients had malformation of the cochlea and were implanted using Nucleus 22/24 and Med-el combi40+. Five out of the six cases were of average intelligence and one had a borderline intelligence quotient. The follow-up period ranged from one year, 10 months to six years, six months (mean = three years, six months) after implantation. The evaluation of auditory perception in patients was accomplished using the Persian Auditory Perception Test for the Hearing-Impaired, a Persian Spondee words test and the Categories of Auditory Performance Index. The Speech Intelligibility Rating test was used to evaluate speech production ability. All the patients' speech perception and speech intelligibility capabilities improved considerably after receiving the implants, and they were able to be placed in regular educational settings. Patients used their cochlear-implant devices whenever awake, implying that they benefitted from the devices. We suggest that any further expansion of cochlear-implantation criteria in children include those with Waardenburg syndrome.

Blink reflex and auditory speech perception in prelingually cochlear-implanted children

ConclusionThe results of this study show that R− prelingually cochlear-implanted children are not optimal candidates for cochlear implantation. However, if this group are implanted, other rehabilitation methods should be incorporated into their rehabilitation program in order to achieve better results and maximize the efficacy of their prosthesis.ObjectiveTo demonstrate that the blink reflex or auropalpebral reflex evaluation can be used as a prognostic factor for the assessment of auditory and speech perception levels in prelingually cochlear-implanted children.Material and methodsIn an observational, analytical, prospective study conducted at a single cochlear implant rehabilitation center in 85 prelingually cochlear-implanted children, the presence or absence of the blink reflex (BR) was evaluated and the results of auditory and speech perception tests were compared between reflex-positive (R+) and reflex-negative (R−) patients. To obtain the BR, four electrodes were applied in both the Nucleus and MED-EL systems and then stimulated by means of current levels higher than the previously detected most comfortable level of the patient until the reflex appeared. Auditory and speech perception levels were measured using the vowels-confusion test and the categorization of auditory perception scale.ResultsThe mean results of auditory and speech perception tests were significantly higher in R+ compared to R− patients.

Hippocampal-dependent memory is impaired in heterozygous GAP-43 knockout mice.

Cajal proposed that the rearrangement and growth of neurites and synaptic terminals is a substrate for the formation and storage of long-term memories. Proteins that regulate this learning-dependent growth are therefore likely to be "core determinants" (Sanes and Lichtman, Nat Neurosci 1999; 2:597-604) of such information storage processes. Although the growth-associated, protein kinase C (PKC) substrate GAP-43 has been oft-implicated in synaptic plasticity and memory, it has never been demonstrated that a reduction in the level of this protein has a deleterious effect on memory, because most homozygotes die perinatally. In this report, we observe significant memory impairments in heterozygous GAP-43 knockout mice with GAP-43 levels reduced by one-half. Impaired memory for a context was demonstrated in contextual fear conditioning. Importantly, no significant impairments in cued conditioning or on tests of nociceptive or auditory perception were observed in the heterozygous knockout, indicating that the observed impairments were unlikely related to performance or acquisition factors and are the result of reduced GAP-43 levels in the hippocampus. The present results, taken together with the prior demonstration of enhanced memory in transgenic mice overexpressing GAP-43, provide strong evidence for a pivotal role of hippocampal GAP-43 in the bidirectional regulation of mnemonic processing.

Facial expressions of emotion in speech and singing

An experiment dealing with the recognition of emotions in speech and in singing for two subject populations (opera amateurs and non-amateurs) was conducted to assess the respective roles of a professional singer's voice and facial expressions in the perception of emotions, and to determine how the audience decodes those emotions. The results of visual, auditory, and audiovisual perception tests showed that emotions expressed during speech were identified better than those expressed during singing. While facial expressions appear to play an important role, the voice proved to be a relatively poor conveyor of emotional information. When voice and facial expression were combined, the recognition of emotions improved slightly for speech but not for singing, where the acoustic cues of emotions are partially destroyed and therefore do not provide any additional information

A Wiener filter approach to the binaural reproduction of stereo sound.

This paper considers authentic binaural reproduction with loudspeakers using cross-talk cancellation. A systematic time domain deconvolution method is presented using both stochastic and deterministic Wiener filters. This method has advantages in that the Wiener filter is inherently causal and stable so that no additional stabilization process, as generally required in the frequency domain methods, is needed. Errors involved in the authentic reproduction are classified into modeling, inverse, and repeatability errors. In addition, the reproduction error is used as the performance measure of a reproduction system. Finally, a series of monaural and binaural reproduction tests were conducted in an anechoic chamber using a PC based reproduction system with a soundcard by changing the length of the inverse filter used. Test results demonstrated that the performance was improved in proportion to the length of the filter used. The reproduction performance error and its test procedure presented here can be used for objectively assessing the performance of a subjective auditory perception test system.

Verbal memory in schizophrenia: additional evidence of subtypes having different cognitive deficits

A prior study found a selective deficit in verbal working memory in a subgroup of patients with schizophrenia who performed as well as healthy controls on a screening test of attention and auditory perception [Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 55 (1998) 1093]. Given the importance of defining pathophysiologically distinct subtypes of schizophrenia, the present study aimed to replicate and extend this finding. Patients with schizophrenia who passed the screening test (discriminators or Dsz patients) were compared to those who did not (nondiscriminators, NDsz patients), and healthy controls on a word serial position test (WSPT) and on other tests of verbal and nonverbal cognitive function. Dsz patients performed more poorly than controls on the WSPT and showed serial position effects consistent with a verbal memory deficit. They also showed a deficit in verbal memory but not visual memory on the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised. In contrast, the NDsz patients showed overall poor performance on both verbal and nonverbal tests, consistent with a generalized deficit. Verbal working memory deficits were not related to education, gender, severity of symptoms, medication status, or hemispheric dominance for perceiving dichotic words. The findings add to growing evidence for the existence of a subgroup of schizophrenia having a specific verbal memory deficit that is not limited to working memory, but extends to learning and recall of verbal material.

Auditory Agnosia in Children after Herpes Encephalitis

Four pediatric patients whose bilateral auditory cortices were damaged by herpes encephalitis at an early age were studied. Their brain CT and MRI scans demonstrated common bilateral lesions of the auditory cortices. Their auditory perception was investigated by means of behavioral and objective hearing tests and auditory perception tests. All four patients showed mild or moderate hearing loss in the behavioral hearing test and normal auditory brainstem responses but did not manifest total deafness. Moreover, perception tests involving speech, environmental sounds and music demonstrated that most auditory perception ability had been lost in all patients. On reaching school age, the patients were enrolled in schools for the deaf or special schools for handicapped children.

Speech perception of Mandarin Chinese speaking young children after cochlear implant use: effect of age at implantation

Objective: The purposes of this study were to examine (1) whether the benefit of cochlear implants in Mandarin-speaking congenitally deaf children persists over a 2-year follow-up period, and (2) whether the age of the child at implantation affects the acquisition of speech perception by young deafened children. Method: Sixteen congenitally deaf children received implants of Nucleus CI24M devices. Speech perception tests were conducted using the Mandarin Auditory Perception Test Battery at 6-month intervals after connection of the device. We determined the benefit of cochlear implants by monitoring percent correct scores between 12 and 24 months after implantation. Regression analysis was used to correlate the measures of progress and the age at implantation. Results: In the comparison of performance at 12 and 24 months post-connection, subjects performed significantly better at 24 than at 12 months in spondee, vowel, and consonant tests ( P<0.05). In phrase and sentence tests, the mean score improved over time with device use, but the difference was not significant ( P=0.066 and 0.067, respectively). However, no obvious improvement in average score was found in tone tests ( P=0.386). Progress (improvement in speech perception) at 12 and 24 months had moderate negative correlations with age at implantation in spondee, vowel, phrase and sentence tests ( P<0.05), but no correlation with age in consonant ( P=0.20) and tone tests ( P=0.26). Conclusion: The result, in accordance with the reports on Western language-speaking children, showed cochlear implants increasingly benefit Mandarin-speaking congenitally deaf children over a 2-year post-implantation period. Because age at implantation negatively correlates with improved speech perception after implantation, congenitally affected children with profound deafness (if they cannot obtain enough benefit from hearing aids) should receive implants as early as possible.

Auditory Agnosia in Children after Herpes Encephalitis

Four pediatric patients whose bilateral auditory cortices were damaged by herpes encephalitis at an early age were studied. Their brain CT and MRI scans demonstrated common bilateral lesions of the auditory cortices. Their auditory perception was investigated by means of behavioral and objective hearing tests and auditory perception tests. All four patients showed mild or moderate hearing loss in the behavioral hearing test and normal auditory brainstem responses but did not manifest total deafness. Moreover, perception tests involving speech, environmental sounds and music demonstrated that most auditory perception ability had been lost in all patients. On reaching school age, the patients were enrolled in schools for the deaf or special schools for handicapped children.

Developmental profiles and auditory perception in 25 children attending special preschools for language‐impaired children

Aim: To study different developmental profiles and auditory perception in a representative group of children with language impairment (LI). Methods: A multidisciplinary investigation was carried out in a group of 25 children attending units specifically for language‐impaired children. An assessment of the cognitive level, motor performance, behaviour and auditory perception was performed and the results were compared with those for age‐matched groups of children. Results: Among those with moderate or severe language impairment (LI), around 90% had additional developmental disorders. In three tests of auditory perception, children with LI had problems with working memory and speech discrimination. No problems were found with the children's temporal resolution in auditory perception. Another conclusion from the auditory perceptual tests was that the children's cognitive abilities were important for their success in these tests. Conclusion: Neurodevelopmental deviations are very common in LI children. The optimal route for the assessment and treatment of these children would be a multidisciplinary approach.

Developmental profiles and auditory perception in 25 children attending special preschools for language-impaired children.

To study different developmental profiles and auditory perception in a representative group of children with language impairment (LI). A multidisciplinary investigation was carried out in a group of 25 children attending units specifically for language-impaired children. An assessment of the cognitive level, motor performance, behaviour and auditory perception was performed and the results were compared with those for age-matched groups of children. Among those with moderate or severe language impairment (LI), around 90% had additional developmental disorders. In three tests of auditory perception, children with LI had problems with working memory and speech discrimination. No problems were found with the children's temporal resolution in auditory perception. Another conclusion from the auditory perceptual tests was that the children's cognitive abilities were important for their success in these tests. Neurodevelopmental deviations are very common in LI children. The optimal route for the assessment and treatment of these children would be a multidisciplinary approach.

On the bistability of sine wave analogues of speech.

Our studies revealed two stable modes of perceptual organization, one based on attributes of auditory sensory elements and another based on attributes of patterned sensory variation composed by the aggregation of sensory elements. In a dual-task method, listeners attended concurrently to both aspects, component and pattern, of a sine wave analogue of a word. Organization of elements was indexed by several single-mode tests of auditory form perception to verify the perceptual segregation of either an individual formant of a synthetic word or a tonal component of a sinusoidal word analogue. Organization of patterned variation was indexed by a test of lexical identification. The results show the independence of the perception of auditory and phonetic form, which appear to be differently organized concurrent effects of the same acoustic cause.

The Effect of Ventilation Tubes on Language Development in Infants With Otitis Media With Effusion: A Randomized Trial

To study the effectiveness of ventilation tubes on the language development in infants with persistent otitis media with effusion (OME). All existing studies addressed children 3 years of age or older. Currently, OME is detected and treated with ventilation tubes at a younger age. Because of the critical relationship between age, hearing, and language development, we conducted a study of the effects of ventilation tubes on language development in infants 1 to 2 years old with persistent OME. A multicenter, randomized, controlled trial (embedded in a cohort) with 2 treatment arms: 1) treatment with ventilation tubes (VT group; n = 93); or 2) with a period of watchful waiting (WW group; n = 94). Hearing loss and expressive and comprehensive language were assessed every 6 months, while tympanometry and otoscopy were performed every 3 months. Other factors with potential influence on language development were also included: adenoidectomy, hospital, attending day care, sex, age at randomization, educational level of the mother, upper respiratory infections, and the native country of the parents and older siblings. The trial was designed to allow for the detection of a mean difference in language development of 3 months or more between children allocated to the VT and WW groups. No relevant differences were found in expressive or comprehensive language between the 2 groups after adjustment for educational level of the mother, IQ of the child, and differences at baseline. A principal component analysis showed that in the VT group, the children with frequent complaints improved 1.6 months more in comprehensive language than those with no or some complaints. The children with favorable language stimulation, however, did not improve more than the children with less favorable stimulation. No differences were found for expressive language among the various clusters. The probability to improve >3 months in comprehensive language was.48 (95% confidence interval [CI]:.29-.68) for children with highly educated mothers versus.09 (95% CI:.02-.30) for children whose mothers had a low educational level. In the WW group, these changes were.30 (95% CI:.14-.53) and.14 (95% CI:.04-.35), respectively. The probability to improve >4 months in expressive language was.52 (95% CI:.32-.71) for children with highly educated mothers versus.06 (95% CI:.01-.31) for children whose mothers had a low educational level. In the WW group these changes were.42 (95% CI:.23-.64) and.11 (95% CI:.03-.35), respectively. In addition, there were delays in expressive language in both groups compared with their age expected values. The comprehensive language of the children who were effusion-free during the follow-up (n = 54) improved 1.5 months (95% CI: -.2-3.2) more than that of the children who had persistent effusion during the entire follow-up (n = 28). No differences were found for expressive language development. Disregarding the intervention contrast, improvements in hearing seemed to be related to improvements in language development, especially in verbal comprehension. In this study, we used the Reynell, Schlichting, and Lexi tests to study the relation between early persistent OME and language development. These tests are directly related to normal language, widely accepted, and validated. It cannot be ruled out that more specific measures such as auditory perception tests would have produced more differences between groups, but the focus was on general language development. A total of 10 children in the WW group received treatment with ventilation tubes during follow-up. A further 11 children dropped out during the trial. A sensitivity analysis with the 10 children who received ventilation tubes did not change the results, and baseline differences were not found between the 11 children who dropped out and those who completed the trial. In the total group of infants with persistent OME, ventilation tubes did not h

Neglect after right insular cortex infarction.

Case reports have shown an association between right insular damage and neglect. The aim of this study was to examine the incidence of neglect among patient groups with right or left insular infarction. We examined neglect in 9 right-handed subjects with insular stroke as evidenced by CT and/or MRI scans (4 with right insular and 5 with left insular cerebrovascular accident) between 4 and 8 weeks after acute stroke with tests of visual, tactile, and auditory perception. Compared with patients with left insular lesions, patients with right insular lesions showed significant neglect in the tactile, auditory, and visual modalities. The right insular cortex seems to have a role in awareness of external stimuli, and infarction in this area may lead to neglect in multisensory modalities.

Results of cochlear implantation in children with post-meningitic deafness

Objective. Evaluation of the effect of cochlear implantation in children who have had meningitis. Materials and methods. The children were tested before implantation with their conventional hearing aids and after implantation at regular intervals with their implant. Audiometry, auditory speech perception tests and the Reynell Developmental Language scales were used for evaluation. Results. The average threshold after implantation was at50 dB. Three years post-implantation the auditory speech perception skills of children with an implant were comparable with those of children with a threshold of 70–80 dB who use conventional hearing aids. The average percentage monosyllable recognition before implantation was 0%, 3 years post-implantation (66%) and 6 years post (90%). The oral language acquisition retarded after the meningitis. Twelve months post-implantation the language quotient increased up to 1, implying that the children developed at the same rate as their normal hearing peers. Nine of the 24 children who had used their implant for more than 2 years were in mainstream school. Conclusion. Cochlear implantation in children who were deaf after meningitis, showed increased auditory ability and an increased rate of language acquisition.

The Effect of Otitis Media with Effusion at Preschool Age on Some Aspects of Auditory Perception at School Age

The relationship between otitis media with effusion (OME) at preschool age and performance on five tests of auditory perception was studied in 89 school-age children who had OME histories well documented from participation in serial screening for OME at 2-4 yr of age. The tests used at 7.5-8 yr of age were: speech-in-noise, filtered speech, binaural fusion, dichotic speech, and auditory memory. A significant effect of OME was found on the speech-in-noise test. No additional effects were demonstrated by this particular group of children.

The effect of the square-root preconditioning on amplitude-modulated ultrasonic hearing

The discovery of the quadratic property of the human auditory sensation induced by the focused amplitude-modulated (AM) ultrasound ( Zeng and Beard, ‘‘The quadratic property of the human auditory sensation induced by focused amplitude-modulated ultrasound,’’ preceding abstract, this meeting) suggests the need for preconditioning of the AM ultrasound stimuli. The preconditioning can cancel the harmonic distortion which is caused by the quadratic effect in ultrasonic hearing. This quadratic harmonic distortion slopes from about −3 dB at 250 Hz (modulation frequency) to −11 dB at 2 kHz (modulation frequency). The preconditioned AM ultrasound is in the form of √‖f(t)min‖+f(t) cos ωt, where f(t) is the modulation signal and ω the angular frequency of the carrier. The non-negative of ‖f(t)min‖+f(t) guarantees that its square root can always be obtained. The auditory perception to the preconditioned AM ultrasound is in the form of the square of the modulation signal, ‖f(t)min‖+f(t), which eliminates the harmonic distortion. In auditory perception test, the ultrasound which is modulated by the preconditioned and unconditioned consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC) syllables is used to stimulate the human cochlea. The subject’s preconditioned ultrasonic intensity thresholds for CVC syllable recognition are lower than the unconditioned ultrasonic intensity thresholds for the same CVC syllable recognition. [Work partially supported by Electro-Stim Corp.]

The effect of maternal employment during preschool years on school readiness

Many children referred because of “learning disability” have mothers in full‐time employment. This study was undertaken to examine the effect of maternal employment on school readiness. One hundred and seven children were studied. Forty‐six were the offspring of women who had not gone out to work since the birth of the child (group A). The mothers of the other 61 had worked for 1 year or more during the lifetime of the child (group B). The mother of each child completed a detailed questionnaire. Each child was subjected to standardized tests of reasoning, numerical ability, Gestalt, verbal comprehension, eye‐hand co‐ordination, visual and auditory perception and IQ. Groups A and B were compared with regard to marital status of parents, their educational attainments, family size, ordinal position of the index child and years of nursery school experience. Educational attainments of both fathers and mothers were significantly higher in group A and children had spent significantly longer at nursery school. Gr...

Response of hearing‐impaired adults to a structured program of auditory training

Twenty adults with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing impairments were given three tests of auditory perception: The CUNY Nonsense Syllable Test (NST), the low predictability items of the Speech in Noise (SPIN) test, and the high predictability items of the SPIN test. The tests were administered at a signal‐to‐noise ratio giving a score of approximately 50%, as determined with an adaptive procedure at the beginning of the study. They were tested on four occasions: (1) at the beginning of the study, (2) after one month of “no treatment,” (3) after a month of intensive auditory training, and (4) after a further month of “no treatment.” During the treatment period, ten of the subjects spent all of the time on global tasks (i.e., activities involving sentence perception and perceptual strategy) while the other 10 spent part of the time on analytic tasks (i.e., activities involving consonant recognition). The results showed: (a) that performance improved only during the treatment period, and (b) that the i...