SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Speech Perception”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

PubMed1991

Comparison of speech perception abilities in deaf children with hearing aids or cochlear implants.

The speech perception abilities of deaf children with a single- or multi-channel cochlear implant are compared with those of deaf children who derive substantial benefit from conventional hearing aids. The children with hearing aids have unaided pure-tone thresholds ranging from 90- to 110-dB HL through at least 2000 Hz, and aided thresholds of 30- to 60-dB HL. The group data show that the speech perception scores of the subjects with hearing aids were significantly higher than those of the subjects with implants on a range of speech perception measures. Although a few subjects with implants achieved scores as high as those who used hearing aids, the majority did not. Even though the children with implants receive substantial benefit from their devices, they continue to have limited auditory perception abilities relative to their peers who derive benefit from conventional hearing aids. The data highlight the importance of establishing hearing aid benefit in potential candidates for implant.

Auditory Threshold↗

PubMed1996

Discriminability and perceptual weighting of some acoustic cues to speech perception by 3-year-olds.

Studies of children's speech perception have shown that young children process speech signals differently than adults. Specifically, the relative contributions made by various acoustic parameters to some linguistic decisions seem to differ for children and adults. Such findings have led to the hypothesis that there is a developmental shift in the perceptual weighting of acoustic parameters that results from experience with a native language (i.e., the Developmental Weighting Shift). This developmental shift eventually leads the child to adopt the optimal perceptual weighting strategy for the native language being learned (i.e., one that allows the listener to make accurate decisions about the phonemic structure or his or her native language). Although this proposal has intuitive appeal, there is at least one serious challenge that can be leveled against it: Perhaps age-related differences in speech perception can appropriately be explained by age-related differences in basic auditory-processing abilities. That is, perhaps children are not as sensitive as adults to subtle differences in acoustic structure and so make linguistic decisions based on the acoustic information that is most perceptually salient. The present study tested this hypothesis for the acoustic cues relevant to fricative identity in fricative-vowel syllables. Results indicated that 3-year-olds were not as sensitive to changes in these acoustic cues as adults are, but that these age-related differences in auditory sensitivity could not entirely account for age-related differences in perceptual weighting strategies.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Speech perception results for children implanted with the CLARION cochlear implant at the Medical University of Hannover.

The perception of speech of 167 children implanted with a CLARION Multi-Strategy Cochlear Implant (1.2 device) was evaluated preimplantation and at 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postimplantation. The children were between 15 months and 15 years of age. The test materials consisted of 8 tests involving syllable structure, single- and 2-syllable words, differentiation of word pairs, and sentences. Two difficulty levels were used, depending on developmental age (<7, and 7 to 15 years). There was an improvement in test scores over time for both age groups. The younger children (particularly those under age 4) improved steadily over the first 2 years, while the older children tended to plateau between 12 and 18 months after implantation. These findings demonstrate that deaf children up to 15 years old benefit from cochlear implants. Children under 4 years of age may even have the ability to compensate for delays in speech development before they reach school age.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Auditory neuropathy in systemic sclerosis: a speech perception and evoked potential study before and after cochlear implantation.

We report the results of speech perception and electrophysiological evaluation of the auditory periphery performed before and after cochlear implantation in a 18-year-old girl with systemic sclerosis (SS) who presented the clinical picture of auditory neuropathy. Transtympanic electrocochleography (ECochG) in response to 0.1 ms clicks was recorded 1 month before cochlear implantation on both sides while the electrically evoked neural response was obtained intraoperatively in the right ear through cochlear implant stimulation. The ECochG recordings revealed the presence of the cochlear microphonic with normal amplitude and threshold on both sides. A compound action potential was only detected in the left ear at high stimulation intensity, while the electrically evoked neural response was clearly identifiable at all the recording sites during neural response telemetry. Standardized speech perception tests were performed 1 month before cochlear implantation and several times after cochlear implant connection. Speech perception scores were close to chance before cochlear implantation while they showed a remarkable improvement thereafter. The results of this study show that subjects affected by SS could present the clinical picture of auditory neuropathy which is possibly underlain by lesions involving the distal portion of auditory nerve fibers and/or synapses with inner hair cells. The restoration of synchronous neural discharge could be achieved by electrical stimulation through cochlear implant.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1980

Tactual speech perception by minimally trained deaf subjects.

Research on tactual perception of speech has shown that many phonetic contrasts can be transmitted to the deaf through artificial hearing devices that stimulate the sense of touch. Past research has emphasized long-term training with tactual reception for the achievement of maximal perceptual performance. The present study demonstrates that, with a brief training period, deaf adolescents can attain a high level of perceptual performance with a tactual speech system in discrimination of certain hard-to-lipread word pairs pronounced by both a male and female speaker. Thus some speech sounds previously indistinguishable by the deaf people can be immediately available for speech comprehension through the tactual vocoder; and other speech sounds will be recognized with further training. The reason that some contrasts are learned quickly and others require extensive training may be found in a pattern perception postulate proposed by Gavin (1979): word patterns that result in stimulation across a greater area of skin tend to be more discriminable than word patterns which stimulate only small areas of the skin.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Speech perception benefits of FM and infrared devices to children with hearing aids in a typical classroom.

UNLABELLED: Children typically learn in classroom environments that have background noise and reverberation that interfere with accurate speech perception. Amplification technology can enhance the speech perception of students who are hard of hearing. PURPOSE: This study used a single-subject alternating treatments design to compare the speech recognition abilities of children who are, hard of hearing when they were using hearing aids with each of three frequency modulated (FM) or infrared devices. METHOD: Eight 9-12-year-olds with mild to severe hearing loss repeated Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) sentence lists under controlled conditions in a typical kindergarten classroom with a background noise level of +10 dB signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and 1.1 s reverberation time. Participants listened to HINT lists using hearing aids alone and hearing aids in combination with three types of S/N-enhancing devices that are currently used in mainstream classrooms: (a) FM systems linked to personal hearing aids, (b) infrared sound field systems with speakers placed throughout the classroom, and (c) desktop personal sound field FM systems. RESULTS: The infrared ceiling sound field system did not provide benefit beyond that provided by hearing aids alone. Desktop and personal FM systems in combination with personal hearing aids provided substantial improvements in speech recognition. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: This information can assist in making S/N-enhancing device decisions for students using hearing aids. In a reverberant and noisy classroom setting, classroom sound field devices are not beneficial to speech perception for students with hearing aids, whereas either personal FM or desktop sound field systems provide listening benefits.

Child↗

PubMed1987

Frequency discrimination of complex signals, frequency selectivity, and speech perception in hearing-impaired subjects.

Frequency discrimination of spectral envelopes of complex stimuli, frequency selectivity measured with psychophysical tuning curves, and speech perception were determined in hearing-impaired subjects each having a relatively flat, sensory-neural loss. Both the frequency discrimination and speech perception measures were obtained in quiet and noise. Most of these subjects showed abnormal susceptibility to ambient noise with regard to speech perception. Frequency discrimination in quiet and frequency selectivity did not correlate significantly. At low signal-to-noise ratios, frequency discrimination correlated significantly with frequency selectivity. Speech perception in noise correlated significantly with frequency selectivity and with frequency discrimination at low signal-to-noise ratios. The frequency discrimination data are discussed in terms of an excitation-pattern model. However, they neither support nor refute the model.

Auditory Perception↗

PubMed2000

Factors contributing to limited open-set speech perception in children who use a cochlear implant.

Cochlear implants have enabled many children with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss to develop speech perception skills. However, some children experience few gains while others develop high levels of speech perception. We identified potential factors contributing to poor performance with an implant by studying implanted children who do not develop functional speech perception. Five children were identified as developing no open-set word recognition skills after at least 2 years of implant use. This study group was compared to a randomly selected control group (n=10) and an age-matched control group (n=5). Pre-implant factors were examined using a Graded Profile Analysis and post-implant factors were assessed in a retrospective chart review. A greater number of pre-implant concerns were raised in the study group than in randomized controls (P<0.01). Chronological age and duration of deafness were pre-implant concerns in all study group subjects. A greater number of post-implant concerns were found in the study group than in randomly selected controls (P<0.005). We conclude that while appropriate selection of candidates for cochlear implantation is important in predicting speech perception outcomes, post-implant follow-up is also essential and must include regular monitoring of equipment, monitoring of stimulation levels with use of objective measures of stimulation levels if necessary, and consistent habilitation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Effect of stimulation rate on speech perception in adult users of the Med-El CIS speech processing strategy.

The primary aim of the study was to determine the effect of altering channel stimulation rate on the performance of adult cochlear implant users. Six adult users of the Med-El CIS processing strategy underwent tests of categorical identification of synthetic speech, tests of sentence recognition and tests of consonant recognition in three listening conditions: high channel stimulation rate (ranging from 1500 to 2020 pps/ch), a medium rate (800 pps/ch) and a low rate (400 pps/ch). Number of channels was held constant across rate conditions. With the categorical identification task, performance varied by acoustic cue type but did not vary with rate. With the consonant recognition task performance varied by phonological feature, but there was also no significant effect of rate. However, two subjects showed markedly reduced sentence scores at lower rates. Results suggests that higher stimulation rates with the CIS strategy may be beneficial to speech perception in some cases.

Adult↗

PubMed1987

The effects of varying the number of cochlear implant electrodes on speech perception.

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the speech perception of a patient fitted with a multichannel processor under different electrode conditions. The subject was evaluated with the speech processor programmed with electrode arrays varying in number from one to nineteen. The results suggested that with an increased number of programmed electrodes, the subject's speech perception improved. Comparisons were also made among three speech processing strategies. The processor was programmed with: (1) one electrode pair that provided fundamental frequency information; (2) nineteen electrode paris that provided fundamental frequency plus second formant information (F0/F2); and (3) nineteen electrode paris that provided fundamental frequency plus first and second formant information (F0/F1F2). The subject did better with the F0/F2 strategy compared to the F0 strategy and best with the F0/F1F2 strategy.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Speech perception of children using Nucleus, Clarion or Med-El cochlear implants.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to present speech perception achievements of implanted children using commercially available cochlear implant devices: Nucleus, Clarion or Med-El. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective analysis. METHODS: Speech perception data of 96 hearing-impaired children: 27 with Clarion, 49 with Nucleus and 20 with Med-El were collected. Speech tests included the Hebrew Infant Toddlers Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (HIT-MAIS) for the infants, the Hebrew Early Speech Perception (HESP) closed-set word-identification test and Hebrew Arthur Boothroyd (HAB) open-set one-syllable word recognition test were used for the older children. RESULTS: I HIT-MAIS: (1) Infants showed similar rate of progress, regardless of device. (2) Children implanted under two years of age reached performance within normal development on this test. II HAB: (1) Most children achieved open set results with mean HAB between 40 and 50%, within 1-1.5 years post implantation. (2) Linear regression analyses revealed no statistical differences between the Clarion the Nucleus and the Med-El devices on the mean final measurement of this test. (3) Age of implantation and mode of communication were significant covariate variables: (a) the younger the child is implanted the better the results and (b) oral communication prior to implantation results in better performance than sign language. CONCLUSIONS: There are no apparent differences in speech perception performance between implant devices when considering background variables. The data have important implications on the rehabilitation process of hearing impaired children with cochlear implants in relation to device selection, age at implantation and mode of communication prior to implantation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1991

Speech perception abilities in children with cochlear implants or hearing aids.

This investigation evaluates the effect of communication method on auditory perceptual development; specifically, speech perception skills in children with little or no residual hearing utilizing cochlear implants, compared to children with some residual hearing who utilize hearing aids. Five speech perception measures assessing pattern perception, spondee and monosyllable word identification, and closed- and open-set speech recognition were administered to 68 prelingual profoundly hearing-impaired children with either hearing aids or cochlear implants. The data suggest that significant differences in performance on some of the speech perception measures are present for children educated in oral programs compared to those educated in total communication settings. This effect was greatest for hearing aid users. Additionally, performance trends suggest that oral multichannel implant users score higher on selected tests than do children using a single-channel implant or a hearing aid. These results have important implications for accelerating speech perception development and maximizing rehabilitation effects in children with cochlear implants or hearing aids.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Effect of low-frequency hearing aid response on four measures of speech perception.

Six individuals with sensorineural hearing loss completed four speech perception tasks while listening through each of three hearing aids varying in low-frequency response. The tasks were magnitude estimation quality judgments, magnitude estimation intelligibility judgments, the Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) test, and the California Consonant test (CCT). All tasks were completed at 90, 100, and 110 dB SPL as measured in the subject's ear canals. Results indicated that both magnitude estimation procedures effectively differentiated among the three hearing aids and produced very similar results. Preference for low-frequency amplification was related to stimulus presentation level. The SPIN test and the CCT results did not differentiate among the aids. The results suggest that the magnitude estimation procedure constitutes a valid means of evaluating hearing aids.

Acoustic Impedance Tests↗

PubMed1998

Speech perception in children after cochlear implantation.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the speech perception ability of congenitally and prelingually deaf children after cochlear implantation. STUDY DESIGN: A prospective study was undertaken on a consecutive group of 119 congenitally and prelingually deaf children up to 5 years after implantation. The study group was confined to children between 2 and 7 years of age at the time of implantation. All were implanted with multichannel cochlear implant systems. No child was lost to follow-up, and there were no exclusions from the study other than one child with auditory nerve aplasia. METHODS: The Iowa Matrix Closed Set Sentence Test and Connected Discourse Tracking were used to assess closed- and open-set speech perception, respectively, without lip reading. SETTING: The study was conducted at a tertiary referral pediatric cochlear implant center in the United Kingdom. RESULTS: It was possible to formally test closed-set speech discrimination on 83, 55, 32, 21, and 15 children at 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months, respectively. On the Iowa Matrix Test, the median score was 0% at 12 months, reaching a plateau of 99% at 36 months. On Connected Discourse Tracking, the median scores at 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months were 0, 0, 21, 40, and 53 words per minute, respectively. CONCLUSION: Congenitally and prelingually deaf children who receive cochlear implants before the age of 7 years have significant closed-set speech perception abilities develop in <3 years after implantation. Their ability to perform open-set tasks without lip reading is limited in the first 2 years but shows significant improvement, not reaching a plateau, at the 4-5-year interval after implantation.

Age Factors↗

PubMed2005

Spectro-temporal processing during speech perception involves left posterior auditory cortex.

This functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigates the neural underpinnings of spectro-temporal integration during speech perception. Participants performed an auditory discrimination task on a set of sine-wave analogues that could be perceived as either nonspeech or speech. Behavioural results revealed a difference in the processing mode; spectro-temporal integration occurred during speech perception, but not when stimuli were perceived as nonspeech. In terms of neuroimaging, we observed an activation increase in the left posterior primary and secondary auditory cortex, namely Heschl's gyrus and planum temporale encroaching onto the superior temporal sulcus, reflecting a shift from auditory to speech perception. This finding demonstrates that the left posterior superior temporal lobe is essential for spectro-temporal processing during speech perception.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1979

Speech perception processes and fitting of hearing aids.

A model of speech perception is modified to take into account the adaptational factors involved in speech perception and learning. In connection with fitting of hearing aids, the model permits a description and identification of factors influencing the immediate and long-term benefits of a hearing aid. Various aspects of the model in connection with the rehabilitation process using hearing aids are considered and a new step-wise adjusting procedure for the assessment of hearing aids is proposed. Our observations imply that speech audiometry is a poor indicator of the long-term benefit of a hearing aid.

Audiometry, Speech↗

PubMed1998

Reduced corticocortical connectivity can induce speech perception pathology and hallucinated 'voices'.

Reciprocal interactions between multiple cortical areas are required for higher-order cognitive processes in animals and humans. A growing body of evidence suggests that reduced cortical connectivity is associated with schizophrenia. We have used neural network computer simulations to characterize symptoms and cognitive pathology that could arise from connectivity reductions. When this pathology was reproduced in simulations of speech perception networks, spontaneous percepts analogous to hallucinated speech were induced due to the emergence of 'locked-in' or 'parasitic' states. We propose that these simulations provide a model for hallucinated 'voices' reported by actual schizophrenic patients. The 'hallucinogenic' model of speech perception also demonstrated subtle speech perception impairments. We have demonstrated similar impairments when assessing schizophrenic patients reporting 'voices', but not when assessing similarly diagnosed patients not reporting this symptom. The model also demonstrates how a 'hypodopaminergic' state can reverse cognitive pathology arising from connectivity disturbances.

Cerebral Cortex↗

PubMed2000

Speech perception performance in prelingually deaf children with cochlear implants.

The goals of this study were to report on mean values of speech perception performance in prelingually deaf children implanted with a Combi 40/40 + cochlear implant. A total of 31 patients were included in the study. The time span ranged over 3 years, during which time the Evaluation of Auditory Responses to Speech (EARS) test battery was used with the children. The EARS battery contains four measures of closed-set speech perception and three open-set tests. The mean test results exhibited steady improvement on all parts of the EARS test battery, even up to 3 years post-implantation. The preoperative scores for the Listening Progress Profile (LiP) were 4%, rising to 93% at 36 months post-implantation. Results for the open-set testing measures were most encouraging, with some children reaching fairly high levels of speech perception, receiving scores as high as 100%, by the 36-month evaluation. The congenitally and prelingually deaf children in our study showed continuous improvement in both closed and open set speech perception following cochlear implantation, although variability in individual performance among the children was noted.

Adolescent↗