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Background The development of a Digit Triplet Test in the Swahili language is an essential step towards providing accurate hearing assessment for Swahili-speaking populations. Objectives This study aimed to develop a Digit Triplet Test in Swahili through a two-part procedure consisting of an optimisation phase and an evaluation phase using normal hearing participants. Method A total of 34 subjects participated in the study. During the optimisation phase, a psychometric intelligibility function was determined for each recorded digit, allowing for volume adjustments to standardise the threshold across all digits. This resulted in a lower threshold and a steeper psychometric function for both the triplets and the test lists. Using the optimised speech material, four test lists were created, each containing 27 triplets composed of digits between 1 and 9. The finalised material was then evaluated. Results In the final version, the mean Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) for the participants was −8.9 ± 0.6 dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), and the mean slope was 24.7 ± 3.5%/dB using triplet scoring. Conclusion The psychometric function for normal listeners shows a steep slope with little variation between subjects and across test lists. Contribution The test results are comparable to those of Digit Triplet Tests developed in other languages, indicating the effectiveness and reliability of the Swahili Digit Triplet Test for hearing assessments.

Speech audiometry is an essential part of audiological diagnostics and clinical measurements. Development times of speech recognition tests are rather long, depending on the size of speech corpus and optimization necessity. The aim of this study was to examine whether this development effort could be reduced by using synthetic speech in speech audiometry, especially in a matrix test for speech recognition. For this purpose, the speech material of the German matrix test was replicated using a preselected commercial system to generate the synthetic speech files. In contrast to the conventional matrix test, no level adjustments or optimization tests were performed while producing the synthetic speech material. Evaluation measurements were conducted by presenting both versions of the German matrix test (with natural or synthetic speech), alternately and at three different signal-to-noise ratios, to 48 young, normal-hearing participants. Psychometric functions were fitted to the empirical data. Speech recognition thresholds were 0.5 dB signal-to-noise ratio higher (worse) for the synthetic speech, while slopes were equal for both speech types. Nevertheless, speech recognition scores were comparable with the literature and the threshold difference lay within the same range as recordings of two different natural speakers. Although no optimization was applied, the synthetic-speech signals led to equivalent recognition of the different test lists and word categories. The outcomes of this study indicate that the application of synthetic speech in speech recognition tests could considerably reduce the development costs and evaluation time. This offers the opportunity to increase the speech corpus for speech recognition tests with acceptable effort.

Purpose The aim of the study was to develop the German Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) with female speaker by fulfilling the recommendations by International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology (ICRA) for using a female speaker to create new multilingual speech tests and to determine norms and to compare these norms with German male speech tests—the male speakers HINT and the Oldenburg Sentence Test (OLSA). Methods The HINT with a female speaker consists of the same speech material as the male speaking HINT. After recording the speech material, 10 normal hearing subjects were included to determine the performance–intensity function (PI function). 24 subjects were part of the measurements to determine the norms and compare them with the norms of male HINT and OLSA. Comparably, adaptive, open-set methods under headphones (HINT) and sound field (OLSA) were used. Results Acoustic phonetic analysis demonstrated significant difference in mean fundamental frequency, its range and mean speaking rate between both HINT speakers. The calculated norms by three of the tested four conditions of the HINT with a female speaker are not significantly different from the norms with a male speaker. No significant effect of the speaker’s gender of the first HINT measurement and no significant correlation between the threshold results of the HINT and the OLSA were determined. Conclusions The Norms for German HINT with a female speaker are comparable to the norms of the HINT with a male speaker. The speech intelligibility score of the HINT does not depend on the speakers’ gender despite significant difference of acoustic–phonetic parameters between the female and male HINT speaker’s voice. Instead, the speech intelligibility rating must be seen as a function of the used speech material.

Previous studies have demonstrated the feasibility of estimating the speech reception threshold (SRT) based on electroencephalography (EEG), termed SRTneuro, in younger normal-hearing (YNH) participants. This method may support speech perception in hearing-aid users through continuous adaptation of noise-reduction algorithms. The prevalence of hearing impairment and thereby hearing-aid use increases with age. The SRTneuro estimation is based on envelope reconstruction accuracy, which has also been shown to increase with age, possibly due to excitatory/inhibitory imbalance or recruitment of additional cortical regions. This could affect the estimated SRTneuro. This study investigated the age-related changes in the temporal response function (TRF) and the feasibility of SRTneuro estimation across age. Twenty YNH and 22 older normal-hearing (ONH) participants listened to audiobook excerpts at various signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) while EEG was recorded using 66 scalp electrodes and 12 in-ear-EEG electrodes. A linear decoder reconstructed the speech envelope, and the Pearson's correlation was calculated between the reconstructed and speech-stimulus envelopes. A sigmoid function was fitted to the reconstruction-accuracy-versus-SNR data points, and the midpoint was used as the estimated SRTneuro. The results show that the SRTneuro can be estimated with similar precision in both age groups, whether using all scalp electrodes or only those in and around the ear. This consistency across age groups was observed despite physiological differences, with the ONH participants showing higher reconstruction accuracies and greater TRF amplitudes. Overall, these findings demonstrate the robustness of the SRTneuro method in older individuals and highlight its potential for applications in age-related hearing loss and hearing-aid technology.

Subjective ratings of listening effort might be applicable to estimate hearing difficulties at positive signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) at which speech intelligibility scores are near 100%. Hence, ratings of listening effort were compared with speech intelligibility scores at different SNRs, and the benefit of hearing aids was evaluated. Two groups of listeners, 1 with normal hearing and 1 with hearing impairment, performed adaptive speech intelligibility and adaptive listening effort tests (Adaptive Categorical Listening Effort Scaling; Krueger, Schulte, Brand, & Holube, 2017) with sentences of the Oldenburg Sentence Test (Wagener, Brand, & Kollmeier, 1999a, 1999b; Wagener, Kühnel, & Kollmeier, 1999) in 4 different maskers. Model functions were fitted to the data to estimate the speech reception threshold and listening effort ratings for extreme effort and no effort. Listeners with hearing impairment showed higher rated listening effort compared with listeners with normal hearing. For listeners with hearing impairment, the rating extreme effort, which corresponds to negative SNRs, was more correlated to the speech reception threshold than the rating no effort, which corresponds to positive SNRs. A benefit of hearing aids on speech intelligibility was only verifiable at negative SNRs, whereas the effect on listening effort showed high individual differences mainly at positive SNRs. The adaptive procedure for rating subjective listening effort yields information beyond using speech intelligibility to estimate hearing difficulties and to evaluate hearing aids.

Purpose: Working memory capacity and language ability modulate speech reception; however, the respective roles of peripheral and cognitive processing are unclear. The contribution of individual differences in these abilities to utilization of spatial cues when separating speech from informational and energetic masking backgrounds in children has not yet been determined. Therefore, this study explored whether speech reception in children is modulated by environmental factors, such as the type of background noise and spatial configuration of target and noise sources, and individual differences in the cognitive and linguistic abilities of listeners. Method: Speech reception thresholds were assessed in 39 children aged 5-7 years in simulated school listening environments. Speech reception thresholds of target sentences spoken by an adult male consisting of number and color combinations were measured using an adaptive procedure, with speech-shaped white noise and single-talker backgrounds that were either collocated (target and back-ground at 0°) or spatially separated (target at 0°, background noise at 90° to the right). Spatial release from masking was assessed alongside memory span and expressive language. Results and Conclusion: Significant main effect results showed that speech reception thresholds were highest for informational maskers and collocated conditions. Significant interactions indicated that individual differences in memory span and language ability were related to spatial release from masking advantages. Specifically, individual differences in memory span and language were related to the utilization of spatial cues in separated conditions. Language differences were related to auditory stream segregation abilities in collocated conditions that lack helpful spatial cues, pointing to the utilization of language processes to make up for losses in spatial information.

To investigate hearing and the take rate of crushed cartilage grafts in tympanoplasty. In this double-blinded, randomised, controlled trial, 46 patients with tympanic membrane perforation were enrolled. A conchal cartilage graft was used for reconstruction in both intervention and control groups. In the intervention group, crushed cartilage was used. The success rate and hearing results were ascertained every four months over a one-year follow-up period. A total of 36 patients - 20 in the intervention group and 16 in the control group - completed one year of follow up. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in mean air-bone gap, bone conduction threshold, speech discrimination score or speech reception threshold. The reduction in living cells after crushed cartilage tympanoplasty may decrease the rigidity and the volume of the graft, but may not necessarily improve the hearing results.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine which demographic, health-related, mood, personality, or social factors predict discrepancies between older adults' functional speech-in-noise test result and their self-reported hearing problems. Method: Data of 1,061 respondents from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were used (ages ranged from 57 to 95 years). Functional hearing problems were measured using a digit triplet speech-in-noise test. Five questions were used to assess self-reported hearing problems. Scores of both hearing measures were dichotomized. Two discrepancy outcomes were created: (a) being unaware: those with functional but without self-reported problems (reference is \"aware\": those with functional and self-reported problems); (b) reporting false complaints: those without functional but with self-reported problems (reference is \"well\": those without functional and self-reported hearing problems). Two multivariable prediction models (logistic regression) were built with 19 candidate predictors. The speech reception threshold in noise was kept (forced) as a predictor in both models. Results: Persons with higher self-efficacy (to initiate behavior) and higher self-esteem had a higher odds to being unaware than persons with lower self-efficacy scores (odds ratio [OR] = 1.13 and 1.11, respectively). Women had a higher odds than men (OR = 1.47). Persons with more chronic diseases and persons with worse (i.e., higher) speech-in-noise reception thresholds in noise had a lower odds to being unaware (OR = 0.85 and 0.91, respectively) than persons with less diseases and better thresholds, respectively. A higher odds to reporting false complaints was predicted by more depressive symptoms (OR = 1.06), more chronic diseases (OR = 1.21), and a larger social network (OR = 1.02). Persons with higher self-efficacy (to complete behavior) had a lower odds (OR = 0.86), whereas persons with higher self-esteem had a higher odds to report false complaints (OR = 1.21). The explained variance of both prediction models was small (Nagelkerke R[superscript 2] = 0.11 for the \"unaware\" model, and 0.10 for the \"false complaints\" model). Conclusions: The findings suggest that a small proportion of the discrepancies between older individuals' results on a speech-in-noise screening test and their self-reports of hearing problems can be explained by the unique context of these individuals. The likelihood of discrepancies partly depends on a person's health (chronic diseases), demographics (gender), personality (self-efficacy to initiate behavior and to persist in adversity, self-esteem), mood (depressive symptoms), and social situation (social network size). Implications are discussed.

The smartphone digits-in-noise hearing test, called hearZA, was made available as a self-test in South Africa in March 2016. This study determined characteristics and test performance of the listeners who took the test. A retrospective analysis of 24,072 persons who completed a test between March 2016 and August 2017 was conducted. User characteristics, including age, English-speaking competence, and self-reported hearing difficulty, were analyzed. Regression analyses were conducted to determine predictors of the speech reception threshold. Overall referral rate of the hearZA test was 22.4%, and 37% of these reported a known hearing difficulty. Age distributions showed that 33.2% of listeners were ages 30 years and younger, 40.5% were between ages 31 and 50 years, and 26.4% were older than 50 years. Age, self-reported English-speaking competence, and self-reported hearing difficulty were significant predictors of the speech reception threshold. High test uptake, particularly among younger users, and high overall referral rate indicates that the hearZA app addresses a public health need. The test also reaches target audiences, including those with self-reported hearing difficulty and those with normal hearing who should monitor their hearing ability.

Purpose: In this research, the authors aimed to increase the analogy between Text Reception Threshold (TRT; Zekveld, George, Kramer, Goverts, & Houtgast, 2007) and Speech Reception Threshold (SRT; Plomp & Mimpen, 1979) and to examine the TRT's value in estimating cognitive abilities that are important for speech comprehension in noise. Method: The authors administered 5 TRT versions, SRT tests in stationary (SRT[subscript STAT]) and modulated (SRT[subscript MOD]) noise, and 2 cognitive tests: a reading span (RSpan) test for working memory capacity and a letter-digit substitution test for information-processing speed. Fifty-five adults with normal hearing (18-78 years, M = 44 years) participated. The authors examined mutual associations of the tests and their predictive value for the SRTs with correlation and linear regression analyses. Results: SRTs and TRTs were well associated, also when controlling for age. Correlations for the SRT[subscript STAT] were generally lower than for the SRT[subscript MOD]. The cognitive tests were correlated to the SRTs only when age was not controlled for. Age and the TRTs were the only significant predictors of SRT[subscript MOD]. SRT[subscript STAT] was predicted by level of education and some of the TRT versions. Conclusions: TRTs and SRTs are robustly associated, nearly independent of age. The association between SRTs and RSpan is largely age dependent. The TRT test and the RSpan test measure different nonauditory components of linguistic processing relevant for speech perception in noise.