Remote Microphone System Use at Home: Impact on Child-Directed Speech

Abstract

Purpose The impact of home use of a remote microphone system (RMS) on the caregiver production of, and child access to, child-directed speech (CDS) in families with a young child with hearing loss was investigated. Method We drew upon extant data that were collected via Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) recorders used with 9 families during 2 consecutive weekends (RMS weekend and no-RMS weekend). Audio recordings of primary caregivers and their children with hearing loss obtained while wearing and not wearing an RMS were manually coded to estimate the amount of CDS produced. The proportion of CDS that was likely accessible to children with hearing loss under both conditions was determined. Results Caregivers produced the same amount of CDS when using and when not using the RMS. However, it was concluded that children with hearing loss, on average, could potentially access 12% more CDS if caregivers used an RMS because of their distance from their children when talking to them. Conclusion Given our understanding of typical child language development, findings from this investigation suggest that children with hearing loss could receive auditory, speech, and language benefits from the use of an RMS in the home environment.

Automatized analysis of children’s exposure to child-directed speech in reschool settings: Validation and application

“…These automatized data have been deployed for a variety of purposes. For instance, researchers used LENA recordings to identify distinctive features of vocal development in children with autism [11], to explore the linguistic experiences of children with hearing loss in the home environment [12], to examine the effects of peer-to-peer talk in preschool classrooms on children's language growth [13], and to assess the effectiveness of interventions designed to increase parents' talk to their children [14]. In addition, researchers recently have used the AWC data from day-long LENA recordings to link variability in children's language exposure in the home environment to language-related brain structure in terms of neural connectivity [2] and cortical surface area [15].…”

“…First, the system does not distinguish CDS from non-CDS among adult talk captured in audio recordings. Therefore, researchers concerned with identifying children's exposure to CDS must utilize extensive additional analyses and hand-coding, leading to only modest amounts of audio-recorded talk to be evaluated (e.g., [12]). Second, the system does not provide nuanced measures of linguistic complexity, such as number of different words and mean length of utterance, which represent important aspects of CDS that correlate with children's language development [6].…”

Fitting Assistive Technology for People with Hearing Loss: The Importance of Remote Microphone Systems′ Electroacoustic Verification

“…It is noteworthy that, in the cases of younger children whose language is still developing and who cannot objectively report the device’s benefit, the electroacoustic data may be the only indication of the effective functioning of the FM system [ 11 ]. Nevertheless, the benefit of RMS in early childhood for language acquisition and development is already strongly evidenced by the literature [ 11 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ].…”

Adesão ao uso do Sistema de Microfone Remoto em estudantes com deficiência auditiva usuários de dispositivos auditivos

“…As escolas são ambientes excessivamente ruidosos, e o ruído interfere no desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes, principalmente para aqueles com deficiência auditiva, o que tem impacto direto no esforço auditivo (10,14) . A reverberação em salas de aula acarreta dificuldades no entendimento da mensagem transmitida pelo interlocutor, gerando a necessidade de que haja um aumento da energia para que o sujeito possa compreender o conteúdo que está sendo ministrado.…”