The study investigated the effect of filtered speech stimulus on speech perception performance of native speakers of Marathi as a function of degree of hearing impairment. Speech identification score (SIS) testing was performed to measure speech perception on three groups (Group I, Group II, and Group III consisted of participants with moderate, moderately-severe, and severe sensorineural hearing impairment respectively). Speech stimuli comprised eight word-lists with each list consisting of 25 words in Marathi. The first seven word-lists (first to seven) were filtered at 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, 1500 Hz, 2000 Hz, 2500 Hz, 3000 Hz, and 3500 Hz cut-off frequencies, respectively, while word list 8 was left unfiltered. Although, the SIS improved with increase in cut-off frequency, the improvement in SIS with increase in cut-off frequency of speech stimulus was noticed up to 3000 Hz, 2500 Hz, and 2000 Hz for participants of Group I, Group II, and Group III, respectively. In addition, the improvement in speech perception performance did not correspond to what would be anticipated with an increase in the cut-off frequency of speech stimulus for participants of Group II and Group III compared to participants of Group I. Although, there was a significant reduction in SIS as a function of the degree of hearing impairment for speech stimulus filtered at 1500 Hz, 2000 Hz, 2500 Hz, and 3000 Hz cut-off frequencies, there was no significant effect of degree of hearing impairment on SIS for speech stimulus filtered at 500 Hz and 1000 Hz cut-off frequencies.

Objective: We assessed preoperative parental expectations on communication abilities, social skills, and academic achievements of children with cochlear implant (CI). Materials and Methods: A total of 18 questions from the “Parent Expectations Questionnaire for Cochlear Implants” related to communication abilities, social skills, and academic achievements were administered on a total of 80 parents who were in the process of cochlear implantation for their children. Results: The results revealed that parents expressed high expectations (expectation score between 81% and 100%) on communication abilities (82.5%), social skills (90.8%), and academic achievements (84.1%) of their children from cochlear implantation. With respect to questions related to communication abilities, social skills, and academic achievements, 87.28%, 97.17%, and 91.80% of parents, respectively, agreed that their children show improvements in the above domains. Conclusions: Overall, parents expressed high expectations on the outcomes of children with CI. Hence, CI team must judge the actualism in the preoperative parental expectations and disseminate accurate prognostic information that is expected from cochlear implantation before surgery in order to make the whole procedure effective.

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Learning poverty is one of the major issues that has come into focus recently in India, especially in Andhra Pradesh. According to the World Bank (2019), learning poverty is the inability to read and comprehending a simple story or paragraph in a given language. It is applicable to all disciplines i.e. either in humanities or in mathematics and sciences. This inability is found especially among students aged between 5-10 (at the end of the primary school). In the present paper, we highlight what the driving forces behind this learning poverty are as well as which can be taken into consideration to curb it. This paper is an attempt to present the problem of learning poverty prevalent in Telugu and English medium schools of Andhra Pradesh, India. However, no remedies have been suggested, as it is very nascent to offer any such suggestions without understanding the nature of learning poverty in this particular scenario. In that way, this paper is only an endeavour to contextualize learning poverty and put forward a blueprint for future conduct of research in this area.