Speech Perception and Gap Detection Performance of Single-Sided Deafness under Noisy Conditions

Abstract

Background and Objectives:Many studies have reported no benefit of sound localization, but improved speech understanding in noise after treating patients with single-sided deafness (SSD). Furthermore, their performances provided a large individual difference. The present study aimed to measure the ability of speech perception and gap detection in noise for the SSD patients to better understand their hearing nature. Subjects and Methods: Nine SSD patients with different onset and period of hearing deprivation and 20 young adults with normal hearing and simulated conductive hearing loss as the control groups conducted speech perception in noise (SPIN) and Gap-In-Noise (GIN) tests. The SPIN test asked how many presented sentences were understood at the +5 and -5 dB signal-to-noise ratio. The GIN test was asked to find the shortest gap in white noise with different lengths in the gap. Results: Compared to the groups with normal hearing and simulated instant hearing loss, the SSD group showed much poor performance in both SPIN and GIN tests while supporting central auditory plasticity of the SSD patients. Rather than a longer period of deafness, the large individual variance indicated that the congenital SSD patients showed better performance than the acquired SSD patients in two measurements. Conclusions: The results suggested that comprehensive assessments should be implemented before any treatment of the SSD patient considering their onset time and etiology, although these findings need to be generalized with a large sample size. J Audiol Otol 2019;23(4):197-203 KEY WORDS:0 Single-sided deafness · Simulated conducted hearing loss · Speech perception in noise · Gap-In-Noise.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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“…Single-sided deafness (SSD) implies a state of one ear being normal with the contralateral ear being hearing impaired. This leads to non-participation of the diseased ear in generating adequate auditory input [ 1 ]. This induces 1) head shadow effect, which blunts the intensity of the sound signal which arises from the diseased ear’s side and, 2) squelch effect, which affects speech discrimination in noisy surroundings and 3) binaural summation-lack of this effect diminishes the loudness of sound signal.…”

Single-sided deafness related to neural vascular conflict: A case report from Saudi Arabia

“…Consequences include: difficulties in comprehension speech with background noise, localization, and spatial appreciation. Furthermore, compromised competency of verbal communication and cognitive capacity affected academic performance, and incapacitated social and emotional status [2,3]. In addition, patients with SSD will experience one-sided auditory deprivation, which will initiate neural plasticity within the auditory cortex and other sensory and cognitive areas [4].…”