Spoken Word Recognition in Adolescent Cochlear Implant Users During Quiet and Multispeaker Babble Conditions

Abstract

Objective-To assess overall speech intelligibility in adolescent cochlear implanted speakers during quiet and multi-speaker babble conditions. Study design-A cross sectional assessment of intelligibility incorporating group (auditory-oral versus total communication speakers), sentence context (high versus low contexts) and background conditions (quiet versus multi-speaker babble).Setting-A camp designed to assess adolescents over a concentrated period of time. Participants: 57 adolescents who participated in an earlier study when they were 8 -9 years old examining functional outcomes of speech perception, speech production and language were asked to participate in follow-up study.Methods-Speech intelligibility was assessed by asking the adolescents to repeat sentences. Sentences were digitally edited and played to normal hearing listeners who either provided broad transcriptions of sound accuracy or wrote down the words they understood when the sentences were presented in quiet and in multi-speaker babble.Main Outcome Variable-The dependent variables were percent correct consonants, vowels and total words identified.Results-Very few substitutions or omissions occurred,--resulting in high levels of accuracy for consonants and vowels. Speech intelligibility in quiet was significantly greater than in the multispeaker babble condition. Multi-speaker babble decreased performance uniformly across sentence context for the two groups.Conclusion-Accurate consonant production based on measures of substitutions and omissions fails to account for distortions and allophonic variations. Reductions in speech intelligibility relative to the phoneme correct productions suggest the allophonic variations related to distortions may influence naïve listener's ability to understand the speech of profoundly deaf individuals.

Perception of Polyphony With Cochlear Implants for 2 and 3 Simultaneous Pitches

“…Besides music, simultaneous speech signals often occur in everyday life. CI subjects have great difficulty understanding multiple speakers (17). Improving polyphonic pitch perception may also be helpful in this aspect.…”

Cochlear Implantation Updates: The Dallas Cochlear Implant Program

“…Once the influence of these factors was removed from the analysis, language outcomes were associated with cognitive variables, including better working memory (i.e., digit span) and faster verbal rehearsal speed (i.e., sentence repetition rate). Speech intelligibility appeared strongly associated with exposure to environments where speaking and listening were included as integral pieces of the therapeutic regime (Fink et al, 2007; Tobey et al, 2011a; Tobey et al, 2011b). Students who relied on sign to improve their vocabulary comprehension typically exhibited poorer English language outcomes than children whose spoken language comprehension paralleled or exceeded their comprehension of speech + sign.…”

Parent Training and Communication Empowerment of Children With Cochlear Implant

“…With respect to the first aspect listed above, most DHH children who use cochlear implant(s) (CI) or hearing aid(s) (HA) typically show speech perception close to 100% (Geers et al., 2003; van Wieringen & Wouters, 2015). However, the limits of technology involve a difficult perception of speech in conditions, such as the presence of background noise (Yang et al., 2012), an increased distance from the sound source (Whitmal & Poissant, 2009), an intensity of the primary signal below device threshold (Davidson et al., 2014), and when the number of communication partners involved in an interaction increases (Tobey et al., 2011). These factors reduce the quantity of words and sentences the child can hear and understand (van Wieringen & Wouters, 2015; Yang et al., 2012) and may negatively affect the opportunity to “overhear” speech and prevent consistent access to auditory linguistic information.…”