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Background: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are about 466 million people living with a disabling hearing loss globally, with almost 34 million of them being children, and approximately 7 million of these children are living in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In South Africa, the incidence of childhood cancer represents approximately 1% of all cancers in the population. The standard treatment in South Africa consists of platinum compounds such as cisplatin and carboplatin. Morbidity factors amongst childhood cancer survivors include hearing loss. Between 20% and 70% of patients suffer from cisplatin and carboplatinum-related ototoxicity. In any context including the South African context, for preventive audiology, it is important to describe and characterise the hearing function of paediatric patients with cancer. Aim: The main aim of the current study was to investigate the hearing function of paediatric patients with cancer in Johannesburg, South Africa. Methodology: A descriptive retrospective record review design was adopted in this study. The patient records were reviewed from Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital and Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital oncology and audiology units. Nonproportional quota sampling was used in this study. Data was reviewed from 47 patient records from the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital and Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital audiology and oncology units. Analysis: In this current study, descriptive and inferential statistics were used in order to indicate any patterns the data may have assumed and to help summarise the collected data. Findings: Demographic and diagnostic factors were thought to have an influence on the hearing function of the paediatric population with cancer. When establishing if a relationship existed between age of diagnosis, gender, race, type of cancer, treatment duration, and type of treatment and hearing function, all the objectives were found to be statistically non-significant, except for the type of cancer which was found to have a statistically significant association. The researcher was 95% confident that the true prevalence of hearing loss in the paediatric population with cancer would fall between 23.5% and 51.2%. The prevalence of hearing loss was found to be 36.2%. Conclusion: The participants who were found to have a hearing impairment, had a hearing impairment due to ototoxicity. As evident from all the audiological assessments administered, there was an evident change in the hearing function of participants from session one to two. Implications: It was recommended by the researcher that audiological monitoring as well as screening protocols be implemented in the oncology and audiology units. Current findings could contribute towards identifying risk factors that are associated with hearing loss in the paediatric population with cancer. These findings could possibly help guide future researchers, audiologists, pharmacists, oncologists, or policy makers in in developing treatment protocols, policies and interventions that may help minimize the effects and risks of cancer treatment on the hearing function of this population without having to compromise the effectiveness of their treatment. Implications for future research are also raised by current findings.

\"A mother whose child has had a cochlear implant tells Laura Mauldin why enrollment in the sign language program at her daughter's school is plummeting: \"The majority of parents want their kids to talk.\" Some parents, however, feel very differently, because \"curing\" deafness with cochlear implants is uncertain, difficult, and freighted with judgment about what is normal, acceptable, and right. Made to Hear sensitively and thoroughly considers the structure and culture of the systems we have built to make deaf children hear.Based on accounts of and interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with the professionals who work with them, and the influence of neuroscience on the process. Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation. Her study provides a nuanced view of a social context in which science, technology, and medicine are trusted to vanquish disability--and in which mothers are expected to use these tools. Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child's brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center.Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, Made to Hear shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology. \"-- Provided by publisher.

Since the first edition was published in 1998, considerable advances have been made in the fields of pitch perception and speech perception. In addition, there have been major changes in the way that hearing aids work, and the features they offer. This bo.

\"Evidence-based interventions only benefit learners when they are implemented fully. Yet many educators struggle with successful implementation. This unique book gives practitioners a research-based framework for working with PreK-12 educators to support the effective delivery of academic, behavioral, and social-emotional interventions. Step-by-step procedures are presented for assessing existing implementation efforts and using a menu of support strategies to promote intervention fidelity. In a large-size format with lay-flat binding for easy photocopying, the book includes 24 reproducible worksheets, strategy guides, and fidelity assessment tools. Purchasers get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials. This book is in The Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series, edited by T. Chris Riley-Tillman\"-- Provided by publisher.

Real-world conversations are often accompanied by some sort of interference that challenges the clarity of the speaker’s message, causing listeners to exert more effort to understand speech. Previous research has demonstrated that when listening to speech becomes difficult, various regions of the brain are recruited beyond those which engage during optimal listening conditions. However, the neural correlates that underly listening effort are not fully understood. Importantly, the pupillary response can be used to index listening effort, such that pupil size increases with increasing cognitive demand. I proposed that pupillometry can be used to characterize the cortical response, such that changes in pupil size would be associated with neural activation that directly relates to effortful processing. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the physiological mechanisms underlying recognition of realistic cochlear implant (CI) speech simulations (i.e., vocoded speech) and examine how effort might be alleviated with access to semantic information. To achieve this, I implemented a speech recognition task and manipulated the semantic content of the sentence (Predictability), spectral degradation (Speech Quality), and the way participants reported their response (Task Mode). Concurrent measurements of speech recognition, pupillary responses, and cortical activation via functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) were recorded from 41 normal hearing (NH) adults. As expected, challenging vocoded speech resulted in larger pupil sizes than did non-vocoded speech, and use of semantic information reduced listening effort. Interestingly, the largest exertion of listening effort was produced after the sentence presentation ended. Neural data revealed Predictability effects in frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices, such that activation in frontal regions responded to higher-level semantic representations of speech, and posterior brain regions were more sensitive to Task Mode which modulated the cortical mechanisms used to resolve Predictability. Positive correlations between the strength of the neural response and peak pupil response were observed in the Middle Frontal Gyrus (MFG) and Inferior Parietal Cortex (IPC), revealing cortical regions related to listening effort. Surprisingly, pupil size just prior to the sentence onset positively predicted individual speech recognition score, suggesting that the degree to which participants were engaged (or prepared) at the start of the trial predicted their overall speech recognition performance. On the other hand, pupil size right after sentence offset was negatively associated individual capacity to exploit semantic information, suggesting that listeners with smaller improvement from Low- to High-Predictability conditions had engaged more effort after the sentence was presented. Overall, the findings presented here indicate that the MFG and IPC carry out cortical mechanisms related to effortful processing, and listeners with a stronger MFG response were more impacted by the degraded listening conditions as they exhibited more effort (larger pupil size) and lower benefit in performance from semantic information. Therefore, it appears that the effect of listening effort on communication (i.e., speech recognition score and semantic capacity) is determined by the individual physiological response of the listener.

Otoacoustic emissions are currently used for various clinical purposes; however, stimulus frequency otoacoustic emissions (SFOAEs) evoked using a single one are not utilized clinically due to uncertainties regarding their generation mechanism, their spatial source(s) in the cochlea, and their susceptibility to various cochlear insults, particularly in humans. Over the years, various models have been proposed relating SFOAE levels to cochlear mechanical irregularities and SFOAE phase gradient delays to cochlear tuning properties. However, these models have not been systematically evaluated across a wide frequency range and in ears with cochlear aging. The current work addresses these gaps in knowledge towards assessing the clinical utility of SFOAEs. First, the relationship between SFOAEs and behavioral thresholds and tuning were examined up to 14 kHz. Second, various metrics of SFOAEs were compared across different age groups in the first five decades of life. The findings revealed a good correlation between behavioral and SFOAE based estimates of threshold and tuning, suggesting that SFOAE levels and delays, as predicted by the most current models of SFOAE generation, arise from roughly similar cochlear regions that determine behavioral thresholds and tuning. Furthermore, SFOAE levels and bandwidth declined with each decade of life, suggesting that SFOAEs are sensitive to early auditory aging. The current findings may be useful in designing future studies in ears with known pathologies towards further evaluating the sensitivity and specificity of SFOAEs and their full clinical potential.

The most recent data published in December 2019 records that approximately 736,900 registered cochlear implantation devices have been received since their approval in the 1980s. While 183,100 of these devices belong to U.S. Citizens, the large majority of cochlear implant recipients live in other countries (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). While a lack of standardized practices exists in relation to audiologic care and management of cochlear implant devices and patients, Browning et al. (2020) attempts to assess and analyze common practices amongst audiologists practicing within the United States of America. This survey uses a modified questionnaire based on Browning et al. (2020) as well as an international survey of clinical cochlear implantation practices by Vaerenberg et al., (2014) to further track similarities and differences among cochlear implant professionals in India to better understand the clinical practice of cochlear implantation worldwide. Cochlear implant audiologists or other trained professionals involved in the cochlear implant fitting process may benefit from this research as it expands the knowledge of common cochlear implant fitting and follow-up practices in India and compares this data with what is known about similar clinical cochlear implant processes in the United States from a similar study by Browning et al. (2020).

Research in emotional responses is in its infancy in Audiology. Past studies have shown a reduced range of emotional responses to non-speech sounds in individuals with hearing loss, and a relationship between emotional responses and feelings of social disconnectedness and isolation. Hence, it is important to study emotional responses. Objective measures of emotional responses or emotional responses to speech stimuli have not been explored. In this study we use a novel method- automatic facial expression recognition - to measure objective, unbiased and unconscious measures of emotional responses. Further, we measure emotional responses to speech stimuli as this is important for communication. We measure emotional responses using facial expressions associated with confusion and frustration in adverse listening situation, i.e., to speech in noise stimuli in normal hearing, and in simulated hearing loss conditions. Our primary aim is to determine the effect of hearing loss on objective and subjective measures of emotional responses. We also determine the relationship between emotional responses, and measures of listening effort. Our secondary aim is also to determine whether objective emotional responses can be obtained remotely. We measured emotional responses in 33 participants with normal hearing in the normal hearing and in the simulated hearing loss condition in the lab, while simultaneously measuring pupil responses. We also measured emotional responses remotely. Our main outcome variables were objective and subjective measures of emotional responses (obtained in the laboratory and remotely) and listening effort. We found that objective and subjective measures confusion and frustration were greater in the simulated hearing loss condition. This finding could have consequences for individuals with hearing loss. For example, experiencing increased emotions of confusion and frustration may discourage individuals with hearing loss from participating in communication situations. We also found a weak positive correlation between subjective and objective measures of emotional response. This could mean that it is important to complement objective measures with subjective ratings of emotional response to get a measure of perceived and unconscious emotional responses. Further, we did not find a correlation between our objective measures of emotional response and objective measures of listening effort, though there was a negative correlation between the subjective measures. Though we see confusion and frustration, as well as listening effort increase with increasing listening difficulty, they are not statistically correlated. Hence, these constructs may be related, but measure different components of the communication and speech perception process. When comparing the responses for lab vs remote condition, we found that greater confusion and frustration was seen in the remote condition. This indicated that some stimulus and hardware considerations need to be taken when measuring objective emotional responses to speech stimuli in remote conditions. Overall, we found that this new method of measuring emotional responses using automatic facial expressions detection algorithm is feasible for use in measuring emotional responses.

Background: Due to the high prevalence of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic individuals (60-80%; Lim et al., 2016), this review will focus on evidence of neuroanatomical abnormalities found in key auditory structures of this clinical population. Identifying atypical anatomy of these areas can inform our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the experience of auditory hallucinations as well as potential deficits in central auditory processing, providing a rationale for the involvement of audiologists in diagnosis and treatment of auditory hallucinations.Purpose: The goal of this review is to describe the auditory neuroanatomical differences in schizophrenic individuals who experience auditory hallucinations compared to normal individuals who do not. Further, it will also explore how these differences in neuroanatomy may be related to central auditory processing dysfunction and auditory hallucinations.Methods: A review of existing literature published from 1960-2020 was conducted to summarize and compare neuroanatomical abnormalities of key auditory structures in schizophrenic brains. Relevant studies published between the years of 1960 and 2020 were identified using the following online databases: Google Scholar, PubMed, PSYCnet, and Mendeley, as well as books, chapters, and bibliographies. For each of the listed databases, search terms included “schizophrenia” AND “auditory hallucinations” AND “auditory cortex” AND “anatomy” AND “Sylvian fissure” OR “superior temporal gyrus” OR “Heschl’s gyrus” OR “planum temporale” OR “(central) auditory processing dysfunction” OR “dichotic listening”.Results: Findings from previous anatomical studies are in strong agreement, having identified structural abnormalities of Heschl’s gyrus, planum temporale, and the Sylvian fissure in schizophrenic brains, suggesting that these auditory structures potentially play a role in the experience of auditory hallucinations.Conclusion/Discussion: This review summarizes and compares available evidence of neuroanatomical abnormalities in the auditory cortex of individuals with schizophrenia who experience auditory hallucinations. Anatomical studies investigating auditory structures in schizophrenic brains indicate abnormalities of Heschl’s gyrus, planum temporale, and the Sylvian fissure, particularly a reduction in hemispheric asymmetries. These anatomical deviations have implications for functional auditory processing. Evidence of the involvement of these key auditory structures provides rationale for audiologists to collaborate with psychiatrists in the diagnosis and treatment of auditory hallucinations. This review also suggests the need for future research to investigate potential correlations between neuroanatomical variances in schizophrenic brains and audiological findings.