Speech Perception in Noise for Children with Auditory Neuropathy/Dys-Synchrony Type Hearing Loss

In Brief Objective: To evaluate the effect of background noise on speech perception in children with auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony (AN/AD) type hearing loss. Design: Open and closed-set speech perception abilities were assessed in 12 school-age children who had been diagnosed with AN/AD in infancy. Data were also obtained from a cohort of subjects with sensorineural (SN) hearing loss and from a group of normal-hearing children. Results: Closed-set speech understanding was more affected by the presence of a competing signal in the hearing impaired than in the normal-hearing subjects. The mean S/N ratio required to identify a spondee in noise was –11.5 ± 2.0 dB for the normal group, whereas the ratio required for the SN group was –5.4 ± 5.1 dB and for the AN/AD group was –2.5 ± 4.7 dB. Closed-set perception in noise was not significantly different for the AN/AD children and their SN counterparts although there was a trend toward poorer performance in the AN/AD group. The effect of background noise on open-set speech perception was also similar across hearing-impaired subjects although again, the AN/AD cohort tended to show greater difficulties in noise than their SN peers. Conclusions: Listening in background noise was more difficult for our group of children with AN/AD-type hearing loss than for their normal-hearing peers. However, the noise effects were not consistent across subjects and some children demonstrated reasonable perceptual ability at low signal-to-noise ratios. The ways in which speech understanding is affected by competing signals may be different for different types of hearing deficit, but the results of this investigation indicate that significant perceptual disruption occurs both in children with auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony and sensorineural type hearing loss. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of background noise on speech understanding in children with auditory neuropathy/dys-synchrony (AN/AD) type hearing loss. Speech perception tasks were carried out in 12 subjects fit with conventional hearing aids in early childhood. Data were also obtained from cohorts of children with sensorineural (SN) hearing loss and normal hearing. Speech understanding in noise for both hearing impaired groups was poorer than for the normally hearing children. Overall, subjects with AN/AD showed greater difficulties than their SN counterparts but results were not consistent across subjects and some children demonstrated reasonable perceptual ability at low signal-tonoise ratios. The ways in which speech understanding is affected by competing signals may be different for different types of hearing deficit, but the results of this study indicate that significant perceptual disruption occurs both in children with AN/AD and SN type hearing loss.