Application of the online hearing screening test “Earcheck”: Speech intelligibility in noise in teenagers and young adults

Abstract

Objective:The objective was to describe the speech intelligibility in noise test results among Dutch teenagers and young adults aged 12–24 years, using a national online speech reception threshold (SRT) test, the Earcheck. A secondary objective was to assess the effect of age and gender on speech intelligibility in noise.Design:Cross-sectional SRT data were collected over a 5-year period (2010–2014), from participants of Earcheck. Regression analyses were performed, with SRT as the dependent variable, and age and gender as explaining variables. To cross-validate the model, data from 12- to 24-year olds from the same test distributed by a hearing aid dispenser (Hoorscan) were used.Results:In total, 96,803 valid test results were analyzed. The mean SRT score was −18.3 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (standard deviation (SD) = 3.7). Twenty-five percent of the scores was rated as insufficient or poor. SRT performance significantly improved with increasing age for teenagers aged 12–18 years by 0.49 dB SNR per age-year. A smaller age-effect (0.09 dB SNR per age-year) was found for young adults aged 19–24 years. Small differences between male and female users were found.Conclusion:Earcheck generated large quantities of national SRT data. The data implied that a substantial number of users of Earcheck may have some difficulty in understanding speech in noise. Furthermore, the results of this study showed an effect of gender and age on SRT performance, suggesting an ongoing maturation of speech-in-noise performance into late adolescence. This suggests the use of age-dependent reference values, but for this purpose, more research is required.

Improving the efficiency of the digit triplet test using digit scoring with variable adaptive step sizes

“…These modifications have improved the correlation between SRTs and PTAs, and because of their improved sensitivity for high-frequency hearing impairment, speech-innoise screening tests using low-pass filtered rather than broadband noise are being commonly used, e.g. for the detection of noise-induced hearing impairment in the framework of occupational healthcare (Leensen & Dreschler, 2013;Sheikh Rashid et al, 2017;Jansen et al, 2014), but also targeting adolescents for whom concerns regarding recreational noise-induced hearing impairment are growing (Rashid et al, 2016).…”

Amplitude modulation detection and modulation masking in school-age children and adults

“…Noise-masked speech recognition tends to be immature in school-age children. Some data indicate that children's performance is mature by approximately 10-12 years of age (Stuart, 2008;Corbin et al, 2016), although other data indicate continued development into adolescence (Rashid et al, 2016). Factors proposed to account for the development of speech-in-noise recognition include selective attention, cognitive abilities, and linguistic knowledge (e.g., McCreery et al, 2017), but there is still no consensus regarding the relative contributions of these factors.…”

Feasibility of remote assessment of the binaural intelligibility level difference in school-age children

“…Remote testing may reduce barriers for participation in research (e.g., travel to the laboratory, testing during business hours), providing an opportunity to recruit a larger and more diverse participant sample (e.g., Rezlescu et al , 2020 ). While few published studies report using remote testing methods to evaluate children's auditory abilities (e.g., Rashid et al. , 2016 ), additional advantages for use with children include the flexibility to test children at convenient times, the option to partition testing into multiple sessions, and enhanced comfort with both the tester (i.e., their caregiver versus an unfamiliar tester) and the environment (i.e., their own home versus a sound booth).…”