Background and Aim: Digits are suitable speech materials for evaluating recognition of speech-in-noise in clients with the wide range of language abilities. Farsi Auditory Recognition of Digit-in-Noise (FARDIN) test has been developed and validated in learning-disabled children showing dichotic listening deficit. This study was conducted for further validation of FARDIN and to survey the effects of noise type on the recognition performance in individuals with sensory-neural hearing impairment. Methods: Persian monosyllabic digits 1−10 were extracted from the audio file of FARDIN test. Ten lists were compiled using a random order of the triplets. The first five lists were mixed with multi-talker babble noise (MTBN) and the second five lists with speech-spectrum noise (SSN). Signal- to- noise ratio (SNR) varied from +5 to −15 in 5 dB steps. 20 normal hearing and 19 hearing-impaired individuals participated in the current study. Results: Both types of noise could differentiate the hearing loss from normal hearing. Hearing-impaired group showed weaker performance for digit recognition in MTBN and SSN and needed 4−5.6 dB higher SNR (50%), compared to the normal hearing group. MTBN was more challenging for normal hearing than SSN. Conclusion: Farsi Auditory Recognition of Digit-in-Noise is a validated test for estimating SNR (50%) in clients with hearing loss. It seems SSN is more appropriate for using as a background noise for testing the performance of auditory recognition of digit-in-noise. Keywords: Auditory recognition; hearing loss; speech perception in noise; digit recognition in noise
Objectives Directional microphone technology can enhance the speech intelligibility and listening comfort of listeners with hearing impairment. The main aim of this study is to investigate and compare the benefit derived by listeners with severe hearing loss from directional microphone technology with that derived by listeners with moderate hearing loss.Methods The acceptable noise levels (ANLs) of two groups of listeners with moderate or severe hearing impairment (17 subjects in each group) were measured under unaided, omnidirectional-baseline-aided, and directional-aided conditions.Results Although the absolute ANL of the listeners in the severe hearing loss group was significantly higher than that of the listeners in the moderate hearing loss group, their derived benefit was equivalent to that derived by the listeners in the moderate hearing loss group. ANL and hearing loss degree were significantly related. Specifically, the ANL increased with the severity of hearing loss.Conclusion Directional microphone technology can provide the benefits of listening comfort to listeners with severe hearing loss.
Background: Previous studies have reported the weakness of recognition of speech-in-noise and dichotic listening deficit in Learning-Disabled (LD) children. This study aimed at further investigating these two deficits in LD children.
Background and Aim: Tinnitus can affect daily life. The evaluation of the affected aspects of life quality is highly dependent on the subjects’perception. Self-report questionnaires have been used to identify these affected aspects. In the present study, the relationship between the Persian versions of tinnitus functional index (TFI-P) and tinnitus handicap inventory (THI-P) was investigated. Methods: This is a comparative cross-sectional study conducted on 28 hearing-impaired and 27 normal hearing subjects with tinnitus in aged 18−60 years selected according to the inclusion criteria. Both groups completed the TFI-P and THI-P. Results: There was a significant and relatively strong relationship between the total scores of THI-P and TFI-P (r = 0.65) and also between the emotional subscale of TFI-P and the catastrophic subscale of THI-P (r = 0.73). Moreover, there was a moderate relationship between age factor and total score of TFI-P (r = −0.32), and between the cognitive subscale of TFI-P and age (r = 0.40). However, no significant difference was found between hearing-impaired and normal hearing subjects in terms of the total score and subscale scores of TFI-P. Furthermore, we found a significant difference between female and male subjects in terms of the relaxation subscale of TFI-P, and between duration of tinnitus and the quality of life subscale (r = 0.33). Conclusion: The scores of the THI-P and TFI-P questionnaires are related to each other and they can be used for measuring the negative effects of tinnitus. Keywords: Tinnitus; tinnitus functional index; tinnitus handicap inventory
Objectives Two main digital signal processing technologies inside the modern hearing aid to provide the best conditions for hearing aid users are directionality (DIR) and digital noise reduction (DNR) algorithms. There are various possible settings for these algorithms. The present study evaluates the effects of various DIR and DNR conditions (both separately and in combination) on listening comfort among hearing aid users.Methods In 18 participants who received hearing aid fitting services from the Rehabilitation School of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences regularly, we applied acceptable noise level (ANL) as our subjective measure of listening comfort. We evaluated both of these under six different hearing aid conditions: omnidirectional-baseline, omnidirectional-broadband DNR, omnidirectional-multichannel DNR, directional, directional-broadband DNR, and directional-multichannel DNR.Results The ANL results ranged from −3 dB to 14 dB in all conditions. The results show, among all conditions, both the omnidirectional-baseline condition and the omnidirectional-broadband DNR condition are the worst conditions for listening in noise. The DIR always reduces the amount of noise that patients received during testing. The DNR algorithm does not improve listening in noise significantly when compared with the DIR algorithms. Although both DNR and DIR algorithms yielded a lower ANL, the DIR algorithm was more effective than the DNR.Conclusion The DIR and DNR technologies provide listening comfort in the presence of noise. Thus, user benefit depends on how the digital signal processing settings inside the hearing aid are adjusted.
The LD children indicated test-retest relative reliability as high as TA children in the ear scores measured by PRDDT. However, within-subject variations of the ear scores calculated by indices of absolute reliability were considerably higher in LD children versus TA children. The results of the current study could have implications for detecting real training-related changes in the ear scores.
Background and Aim: Tinnitus functional index (TFI) has been introduced as a standard self-assessment questionnaire for the evaluation of tinnitus severity and its negative consequences with enough sensitivity to detect the outcomes of treatment. The purpose of this study was to translate the original tinnitus functional index into Persian and to evaluate its reliability in a military population. Methods: The translation was performed in accordance with the Principles of Good Practice for the Translation and Cultural Adaptation Process for Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures. 32 military and veteran men with tinnitus aged 22−74 years participated in the current study. The participants completed the Persian version of the TFI and the second re-evaluation session was conducted over the telephone 10−14 days later. Both relative and absolute reliability indices were computed. Results: Intraclass correlation coefficient(2,1) with consistency definition for the TFI subscales varied from good to excellent. The agreement between the TFI total scores in the evaluation and re-evaluation using Bland-Altman analysis was acceptable and only one case was not located within the limits of agreement. Conclusion: Initial evaluation of the Persian version of TFI shows acceptable results in terms of reliability. The evaluation of the Persian TFI in different populations of patients with tinnitus and its validity would facilitate its clinical application. Keywords: Tinnitus; questionnaire; Persian
Background and Aim: Evaluation of word recognition score requires multiple lists that must be similar in terms of difficulty level. There is currently no such word lists for the Persian language. The aim of this study was to construct several lists of Persian monosyllabic words with psychometric homogeneity. Methods: The most common monosyllabic words were collected from a book of Persian word frequency. The selected monosyllabic Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words were presented randomly to 30 normal hearing participants with the age range of 18 to 25 years. The presentation level was from 0 to 40 dB in 8 dB increments. The characteristics of psychometric function were determined for all words using the logistic regression. Results: The Persian CVC monosyllabic words have different difficulty levels with threshold varying from 2.8 to 37.2 dB HL and the slope from 2.3 to 16.4 %/dB. Conclusion: The final result of the present study is three full lists of monosyllabic words with CVC syllabic structure that have the same mean threshold and slope of psychometric function. The 25-word half-lists of each full list are similar in terms of psychometric characteristics. Keywords: Psychometric function; Persian monosyllabic words; speech audiometry
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