International Journal of Audiology最新文献

Objective: This study investigates the learning trajectories of primary caregivers of children with hearing loss in acquiring aural-oral teaching and behavioural skills through a structured parent training program.

Design: Study employed a longitudinal design to track the progression of caregiver skills over time. Data were collected at multiple time points to capture changes in caregivers' abilities to recognise, interpret, and respond to their children's communicative behaviours.

Study sample: A longitudinal evaluation was conducted involving the primary caregivers of 271 children with severity range from unilateral to profound of bilateral hearing loss who participated in Auditory-Verbal Intervention between October 1, 2021, and February 18, 2025.

Results: Findings reveal a progressive pattern of skill development, beginning with the recognition and response to children's communicative intent within the first month of training. By the fourth month, caregivers demonstrated increased awareness of child interests, followed by the ability to assess developmental capabilities and apply appropriate strategies by the sixth to eighth month. More advanced skills emerged between the twelfth and twenty-first months.

Conclusions: At least eight months are needed for effective integration of strategies, with full mastery taking up to two years. Sustained support is essential for family success.

Objectives: To establish normative data and investigate the impact of age and sex in children for five new tests of auditory processing that do not involve speech, but which include stimuli as acoustically complex as speech. The tests are: Adaptive within-channel gap detection (WCGD), Adaptive between-channel gap detection (BCGD), Spectro-temporal resolution - Sweep (STR-S), Spectro-temporal resolution - Duration (STR-D), and Adaptive Temporal Fine Structure (TFS) tests.

Design: A cross-sectional study.

Study sample: 194 normally-hearing 6-to-11-year-old children, who spoke English either natively or as a Second Language (ESL) completed a randomly assigned subset of tests: WCGD (n = 115), BCGD (n = 111), STR-S (n = 120), STR-D (n = 116), and TFS (n = 100).

Results: Normative ranges and z-score were established for all tests. Analyses showed moderate correlations between BCGD and WCGD (r = 0.43), BCGD and STR-S (r = 0.38), BCGD and STR-D (r = 0.44), BCGD and TFS (r = 0.38), WCGD and TFS (r = 0.34) and STR-S and STR-D (r = 0.53), and a weak correlation between STR-S and TFS (r = 0.20). A multi-linear regression showed effects of age but not sex on all five test thresholds.

Conclusions: These validated tests allow audiologists to assess children as young as six years old and thereby identify difficulties early as an initial step to intervention.

Objective and design: With this cross-sectional study, we aimed to assess whether cochlear implant (CI) users have different occupational well-being than individuals with hearing loss (HL) without CI (HL group) and those with typical hearing (TH). We used validated questionnaires to assess all outcomes.

Study sample: We included 98 CI users (mean age 51 y), 52 HL group participants (mean age 49 y) and 54 TH group participants (mean age 46 y).

Results: Capabilities, physical and psychosocial working conditions were similar overall across the three groups. However, compared to the HL group, the CI group had significantly better outcomes on a range of variables, reporting fewer psychosomatic symptoms, better health, higher acceptance of their HL, better verbal coping strategies, fewer interruptions during work, and lower perceived noise level. There were no variables indicating that CI users performed worse than their peers from the HL group.

Conclusions: Overall, CI users show occupational well-being and capabilities comparable to those of other groups. However, CI users appear to be more advanced in their progress towards acceptance of their HL, use of verbal coping strategies, are better adjusted at work, and report better health than individuals with HL without a CI.

Objective: To achieve a multi-dimensional characterisation of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners' hearing abilities, including standard audiological conditions and virtual acoustic scenes for the evaluation of hearing aids.

Design: Within-subjects design, including speech intelligibility and listening effort measurements in two standard conditions and four virtual acoustic scenes, and assessments of loudness scaling, tone-in-noise detection thresholds, and HEAR-COMMAND tool questionnaire.

Study sample: 76 age-matched listeners, including 20 normal-hearing, 25 hearing-impaired without hearing aids, and 31 hearing aid users.

Results: Speech intelligibility and hearing aid benefit in virtual acoustic scenes fell between the results of the standard audiological conditions S0N0 and S0N90. The S0N0 and underground station environment were the most challenging conditions regarding speech intelligibility and listening effort. The pure-tone average explained most of the differences between the listener groups in loudness perception and tone-in-noise detection thresholds. Moderate to strong correlations were found between the HEAR-COMMAND tool speech scores and speech intelligibility.

Conclusions: The study established a unique measurement database including complex virtual acoustic scenes and demonstrated a connection between speech intelligibility, hearing aid benefit, and other perceptual auditory measures. The database and findings provide a valuable foundation for advancing hearing aid evaluation and can serve as a benchmark in computational audiology.

Objectives: This scoping review provides an overview of aural rehabilitation with communication partners and analyses it using the Dyadic Regulation Connectivity Model.

Design: A scoping review.

Methods: Of 2,808 studies retrieved from five electronic databases up to August 2025, 17 were selected. These studies were analysed for aural rehabilitation content, implementation strategies, and partner roles. A theory-based analysis further examined Representations, Coping Behaviours, and Outcome hubs within the Dyadic Regulation Connectivity Model.

Results: Family members were the most common communication partners of older adults with hearing loss. Aural rehabilitation programs included auditory training, communication strategy training, and individual or group lectures. Most aural rehabilitation interventions were multimodal, with varying levels of partnership (Representations). In terms of Coping Behaviours, patients and their partners developed strategies to manage hearing loss and adapted their behaviours accordingly. Aural rehabilitation interventions improved patients' communication ability despite hearing loss and related challenges. Although aural rehabilitation improved partners' knowledge, attitudes, and responses towards hearing loss, few studies examined interaction or interdependence (Outcomes).

Conclusions: Theory-based aural rehabilitation may foster effective communication partnerships for older adults. Future research should define the active roles of partners, incorporate dyadic aural rehabilitation components, and evaluate partners' outcomes.

Objective: This study addresses conceptual issues around data standardisation in audiology, and outlines steps towards achieving it. It reports a survey of the computational audiology community on their current understanding, needs, and preferences concerning data standards. Based on survey findings and a panel discussion, recommendations are made concerning moving forward with standardisation in audiology.

Design: Mixed-methods: (1) review of existing standardisation efforts; (2) a survey of the computational audiology community; (3) expert panel discussion in a dedicated session at the 2024 Virtual Conference of Computational Audiology.

Sample: Survey: 82 members of the global community; Panel discussion: five experts.

Results: A prerequisite for any global audiology database are agreed data standards. Although many are familiar with the general idea, few know of existing initiatives, or have actively participated in them. Ninety percent of respondents expressed willingness to follow or contribute to standardisation efforts. The panel discussed relevant initiatives (e.g. OMOP, openEHR, Noah) and explored both challenges (around harmonisation) and opportunities (alignment with other medical fields and conversion among approaches).

Conclusions: Combining conceptual discussion with stakeholder views, the study offers guidance for implementing interoperable data standards in audiology. It highlights community support, key issues to address, and suggests paths for future work.

Objective: To develop items and evaluate content validity of a new patient-reported outcome measure, Living with Cochlear Implants (LivCI), designed to assess personal and psychosocial factors relevant to adult cochlear implant (CI) users and candidates.

Design: The LivCI was developed following COSMIN best practice guidelines and involved extensive stakeholder engagement. Items (n = 87) were initially generated within five key themes: convenience and management, function and participation, stigma and identity, visibility and aesthetics, and psychosocial wellbeing.

Study sample: Content validity was assessed via cognitive interviews with CI users (n = 7) and candidates (n = 7), and an online survey of CI professionals (n = 15) that evaluated item relevance, clarity and theme fit.

Results: Lived experience participants found most items relevant and clear, with some revised or removed based on ambiguity or redundancy. Experts rated items highly (mean 3.6-3.9 out of 4), following removal of seven items and reclassification of several others. Readability scores met recommended standards for public-facing health measures. Further psychometric testing has reduced items and validated the LivCI.

Conclusions: Content validity with stakeholders was a key stage in the development of the LivCI. The LivCI was shown to assess personal and psychosocial factors relevant to adult CI users and candidates.

Objective: We aimed to establish how accurately the Parent-evaluated Listening and Understanding Measure (PLUM) identifies longer-term otitis media (OM)-related hearing status in young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

Design: Retrospective review of clinical data, designed with Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and non-Indigenous researchers and clinicians.

Study sample: De-identified audiological and demographic information gathered during 15,444 appointments with 6,716 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 7 years and younger.

Results: PLUM effectively distinguishes persistent, OM-related hearing loss requiring specialist referral (>30 dB HL better ear for >3 months) from transient and/or milder loss. Eighty-two percent of children meeting these referral criteria were "not yet on track", compared to 26% with comparable, but transient, loss. PLUM demonstrated strong performance: 82.4% sensitivity, 91.2% specificity, 98.6% negative predictive value, and 90.5% accuracy. Children "not yet on track" had 46 times higher odds of meeting hearing referral-level criteria (OR = 45.73, 95% CI: 12.60-165.93).

Conclusions: PLUM draws on parent/caregiver observations to help practitioners identify - or exclude - persistent OM-related hearing loss >30 dB HL, early in children's lives. A single assessment provides insight into longer-term hearing status, complementing point-in-time measures. This is the first accuracy evidence for a listening skills checklist using longer-term hearing as reference standard.

Objective: Recent research has proposed several behavioural measures as proxies for assessing communication difficulty caused by increased noise or compromised hearing. This study aimed to examine which of a selection of such measures best predicts perceived communication difficulty arising from noise or attenuated hearing.

Design: Dyad conversations, prompted by a spot-a-difference task, were recorded twice under four conditions: in quiet with and without occluded ears, and in noise at 60 and 70 dBA without occlusion. After each conversation, participants rated their perceived conversational success, effort, and frustration that were consolidated into a single score of perceived communication difficulty. Behavioural measures included measures of speech production, turn-taking, and gaze movement.

Study sample: Twenty-four older adults with normal hearing, forming 12 conversational pairs.

Results: Communication difficulty scores increased with increasing noise and attenuated hearing. Each behavioural measure was sensitive to changes in noise and/or hearing. Increased vocal level and gaze movement best predicted perceived communication difficulty under increased noise, whereas no robust model fitted the hearing condition data.

Conclusions: In noisy environments, perceived communication difficulty may be assessed through measures of speech production and gaze, while further research is needed to identify behavioural markers that reliably reflect difficulty resulting from compromised hearing.

Objective: To determine correlations between speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) for everyday sentences compared to Matrix sentences and digits-in-noise (DIN) triplets.

Design: Comparative analysis of SRTs across three speech materials in both cochlear implant (CI) users and typical hearing (TH) listeners, using linear regression and analysis of covariance.

Study sample: 18 experienced CI users (mean age 63 ± 5 years) and 18 age-equivalent TH listeners (mean age 62 ± 12 years), all naive to the test materials.

Results: SRTs of Matrix sentences and everyday sentences correlated significantly (R²: 0.81 for CI, 0.71 for TH), as did SRTs of DIN triplets and everyday sentences (R²: 0.42 for CI, 0.28 for TH). Regression slopes did not differ significantly between CI and TH groups in either comparison. However, intercepts differed significantly between the CI (-2.65) and TH (-6.70) groups for the DIN triplets, but not for the Matrix sentences. Slopes for the DIN triplets deviated significantly from unity for both groups.

Conclusions: Dutch/Flemish Matrix sentence SRTs closely correlate with everyday sentence SRTs for both CI users and TH listeners, establishing it as a reliable alternative for repeated assessment. DIN triplet SRTs showed weaker correlations with everyday sentences and with significant intercept differences between groups.