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Auditory and Vestibular Research - Volume:25 Issue: 4, Autumn 2016

Auditory and Vestibular Research
Volume:25 Issue: 4, Autumn 2016

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1395/10/18
  • تعداد عناوین: 8
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  • Yones Lotfi, Samira Salim, Saiedeh Mehrkian, Tayebeh Ahmadi, Akbar Biglarian Pages 194-200
    Background And Aim
    different tests have been developed to evaluate reduced ability of speech perception in noise, and the words-in-noise test is one of the easiest ones in terms of speech materials. This study aimed to develop and determine the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the words-in-noise (WIN) test for 7 to 12-year-old children.
    Methods
    This research is a tool-making, non-empirical study including three main stages: first, development of the Persian version of the WIN test (including 2 lists each one designed at each of 7 different signal to noise ratios), second, the assessment of its content validity, and third, its administration on sixty three 7-to 12-year-old normal hearing children (36 boys and 27 girls) with a mean age of 9.32 (SD=1.66) years old, in order to assess the reliability of the test (list equivalency). Participants were selected from the students of primary schools in Tehran.
    Results
    The content validity ratio for each item was above 0.62. List 1 and 2 of the WIN test were highly correlated (p0.05). The Mean of speech in noise ratio (SNR) 50% for each list was also determined.
    Conclusion
    Based on the study results, it is concluded that the Persian version of the WIN test has acceptable content validity and reliability and can be used in clinical and research studies.
    Keywords: Speech perception in noise, words in noise test, validity, reliability
  • Azam Sharifi, Mahbube Arefi, Kurosh Fathi Vajargah, Ali Asghar Kakojoibari Pages 201-206
    Background And Aim
    Autobiography is a kind of narrative writing about a person written by that same person. Indeed, it is a type of writing about self that is full of subjectivity and experience. The present study investigated the effect of autobiography method on the comprehension skill of hearing-impaired students.
    Methods
    International Standardized Reading Literacy Questions (2001) was employed for data collection. Six hearing-impaired students from special female schools of Shahriar city, Iran, in the range of severe to profound hearing impairment were selected as control (n=3) and experimental (n=3) groups. Autobiography method was used for the experimental group during 23 sessions of hearing rehabilitation training.
    Results
    In the experimental group, mean score of posttest was significantly higher than that of the pretest in levels one and two of comprehension process (p0.05). In the control group, there was no significant difference between post and pretests in all the four levels (p>0.05).
    Conclusion
    Autobiography as a teaching method focuses on the lived experiences of the individual. In so doing, student's experiences are discovered, expressed, and interpreted, and students are committed to improving their writing skill through achieving a broader set of language functions. Furthermore, boosting language skills can improve comprehension in hearing-impaired students.
    Keywords: Autobiography, comprehension, hearing impaired, students
  • Fatmah Tarrab, Zouheir Marmar, Isam Alamine Pages 207-214
    Background And Aim
    The hearing loss and acoustic feedback signal in the binaural hearing aids may annoy users, make speech reorganization difficult, and affect the sound quality. This paper presents a new method for acoustic feedback suppression in binaural hearing aids, based on the combination of binaural information and blind source separation. This method can enhance sound from the specific direction of the user and cancels acoustic feedback signal so that the user can hear clearly.
    Methods
    In the proposed method, the binaural information (interaural time differences (ITDs) and interaural level differences (ILDs)) was generated using computational auditory scene analysis (CASA). In addition, we used underdetermined blind source separation (BSS) for the automatic classification of the time-frequency (T-F) units of the speech mixture spectrogram. The system performance was evaluated using 32 acoustic English speech mixtures. The sound quality was assessed using 19 normal-hearing listeners of both genders.
    Results
    The system achieved a good acoustic feedback suppression performance by giving a higher signal to noise ratio and 18.07 dB on average for the signal-to-feedback ratio. In addition, the sound after processing had a high quality according to the subjective assessment.
    Conclusion
    Our system allowed the user to increase the gain of the hearing aid without affecting the sound quality.
    Keywords: Source separation, computational auditory scene analysis, acoustic feedback, hearing aids
  • Mansoureh Adel Ghahraman, Seyed Hadi Samimi Ardestani, Khosro Sadeghniiat Haghighi Pages 215-220
    Background And Aim
    Some risk factors for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) such as upper respiratory airways abnormalities and obesity overlap with the risk factors for Eustachian tube dysfunction (ETD). In this study, we investigated the prevalence of ETD in a population of patients with OSA.
    Methods
    Tubal dysfunction was determined by tympanometry and inflation-deflation test in 36 patients diagnosed with severe OSA and 20 normal participants.
    Results
    More than 80% of patients with OSA had concomitant ETD at least in one ear. Obese participants had a smaller tympanometric peak pressure (TPP) shift after inflation-deflation test than non-obese subjects. There was no signifycant correlation between TPP shift and duration of OSA.
    Conclusion
    High prevalence of concomitant ETD was determined in patients with severe OSA and obese individuals. Tubal function testis suggested in patients referred for OSA evaluation.
    Keywords: Eustachian tube dysfunction, inflation deflation test, obesity, obstructive
  • Saeid Aarabi, Farnoush Jarollahi, Sajed Badfar, Reza Hosseinabadi, Mohsen Ahadi Pages 221-226
    Background And Aim
    It will be discussed about five mechanisms in relation to speech in noise perception; including neural encoding and decoding, centrifugal pathways, pitch perception, asymmetric sampling in time and cognitive skills. These mechanisms are related to each other and each is important to recognize speech in noise. In this article, we have tried to rely on the latest studies to describe the mechanisms as mentioned. In the end, we will refer to word in noise training.
    Methods
    In this review study, the articles related to speech perception in noise published in Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and Springer database, were collected and investigated. Keywords include speech in noise and related words.
    Conclusion
    It can be concluded that mentioned mechanisms have a considerable effect on speech in noise perception. It should be noticed that word in noise training cause these mechanisms to improve by covering some of them.
    Keywords: Speech in noise, word in noise training, hearing in noise, speech perception
  • Abdollah Moossavi, Maryam Etemadi, Mohanna Javanbakht, Enayatollah Bakhshi, Mohammad Amin Sharafi Pages 227-233
    Background And Aim
    There is a controversy about cochlear implant usefulness for users since they do not develop speech and language with equal quality. Many researchers by controlling demographic and medical variables in this population suggested the contribution of neuro­cognitive factors such as working memory to this variation. The aim of this study was to com­pare working memory capacity between two groups of cochlear implantees who differ just in terms of speech in noise (SIN) scores.
    Methods
    In this study, 26 cochlear implanted children, aged 8-12 years who had received cochlear implant (CI) before age 3, took part and were divided into two groups of more than 75% and less than 60% based on their SIN scores. Both groups were matched for their medical and demographic characteristics, and underwent forward, backward digit span, and non-word repetition tests.
    Results
    There were significant differences in the scores of all three tests between the two gro­ups (p
    Conclusion
    The difference in working memory capacity between the two groups, and positive correlation between working memory capacity and SIN scores indicated the importance of wor­king memory capacity in the ability of speech perception in noise in CI children. Thus, attention to working memory capacity in cochlear implant users seems important in planning for rehabilitation programs.
    Keywords: Cochlear implant, children, speech in noise, working memory
  • Nafiseh Ghiamatyoon, Abbas Nesayan, Guita Movallali Pages 234-240
    Background And Aim
    Social networking sites (SNSs), known in terms of cyberspace, are a very popular and accepted aspect of technology. Internet is more useful for hearing-impaired children and adolescents than the other users because of the type of communication and its possibility of hiding their disabilities. This study aimed to determine the relationship between using cyberspace and the motivation of hearing impaired adolescents and their feeling of loneliness.
    Methods
    Eighty five hearing impaired students with age range of 12-23 and mean age of 16.28±2.35 years took part in this study. All students were selected from special schools in Tehran city. Dehshiri loneliness scale and the questionnaire of characteristics of hearing impa­ired users of Social Networking Sites were used to collect data.
    Results
    The results showed that despite inferquent use of cyberspace for learning among hearing-impaired students, there was no relationship between motivation of using cyberspace and feeling of loneliness. Also, no correlation was found between feeling of loneliness and their activities in cyberspace except for chatting with other hearing impaired individuals (p>0.05). In other words, chatting with hearing impaired individuals had a positive significant correlation with feeling of loneliness (p=0.020).
    Conclusion
    Based on the obtained results, hearing-impaired individuals normally chat with their hearing-impaired peers when they feel lonely. Also, it was found that the use of cyberspace for learning is rare in hearing-impaired students. Thus, it is necessary for teachers and experts to provide appropriate facilities and useful internet use for these students.
    Keywords: Loneliness, hearing impairment, cyberspace, internet
  • Sahar Shahbazi, Fahimeh Hajiabolhassan, Ghassem Mohammadkhani, Shohreh Jalaie, Taher Taheri, Abbas Tafakhori Pages 241-247
    Background And Aim
    Electrical discharges in temporal lobe epilepsy can cause disorders in auditory pathways. Staggered spondaic word test (SSW) is one of the most common behavioral tests to evaluate the central auditory nervous system. This study aimed to evaluate and compare auditory processing problems in temporal lobe epileptic patients and normal subjects with Persian SSW test.
    Methods
    This cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study was conducted on 25 patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy aged 18-46 years and 25 controls aged 18-42 years using SSW test. Corrected spondaic word test (C-SSW) was compared between groups.
    Results
    Significant differences were found in the mean scores of right non-competitive, left non-competitive, right competitive, left competitive, right ear, and left ear between groups (p
    Conclusion
    This study revealed a high prevalence of central auditory processing disorders in patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy that is increased with increasing duration of disorder of temporal lobe epilepsy.
    Keywords: Staggered spondaic word test, audi¬tory processing, epilepsy