Monthly Archives: February 2011
Effect of Tinnitus Retraining Therapy on the Loudness and Annoyance of Tinnitus: A Controlled Trial
Conclusions: Individuals with moderate to severe tinnitus, without hearing loss in the speech frequency range, benefit from treatment with either TRT or general counseling. The global improvement in tinnitus handicap with TRT accrues over an 18-mo period and seems to be a robust and clinically significant effect.
from Ear and Hearing
Five-Year Incidence and Progression of Hearing Impairment in an Older Population
Conclusions: Hearing loss was a frequent sensory disability, with one in three persons having a hearing impairment, and of these, almost one in two showing a decline in hearing over a 5-yr period. This information can potentially contribute to the planning and resource investment in auditory rehabilitation services for older Australians.
from Ear and Hearing
Influence of Widening Electrode Separation on Current Steering Performance
Conclusions: Spanning over wider electrode distance is feasible. With increasing electrode spanning distance, more current compensation is needed to maintain equal loudness, and a gradual deterioration in the just noticeable difference for pitch is observed. However, the pitch progression is linear. For a spanned signal with equal proportions of current delivered to both electrodes, pitch is equivalent to that produced by an intermediate physical electrode.
from Ear and Hearing
Mean Hearing Thresholds Among School Children in Taiwan
Conclusions: These results indicate that the mean thresholds among the study sample were well above (meaning poorer) the pure-tone average of 15 dB HL, as recommended in a previous study. Therefore, the results of this study suggest the need to further determine the etiology of hearing loss among children in grades 1, 4, 7, and 10 in the Datong and Jhongshan Districts of Taipei City and perhaps Taiwan.
from Ear and Hearing
Preference for One or Two Hearing Aids Among Adult Patients
Conclusions: Evidence-based practice calls for a conscientious melding of current evidence, clinical judgment, and patient preferences. The results of this research challenge practitioners to recognize that many patients who seem to be ideal candidates for bilateral aiding will actually prefer to wear only one hearing aid. Furthermore, at this time, there is no accurate method that will predict which patients will prefer one hearing aid rather than two. At present, the most effective approach open to practitioners would be to conduct a candid unbiased systematic field trial allowing each patient to compare unilateral and bilateral fittings in daily life. This might necessitate more fitting sessions and could perhaps add to the practitioner’s burden. This downside should be weighed against the additional patient satisfaction that can be anticipated as a result of transparency in the fitting protocol, collaboration with the patient in the treatment decisions, and the knowledge of selecting the most cost-effective patient-centered solution.
from Ear and Hearing
Two-Dimensional Localization of Virtual Sound Sources in Cochlear-Implant Listeners
Conclusions: For the horizontal plane, the results are in agreement with previous CI studies performed in the horizontal plane with a comparable range of targets. For the vertical plane, CI listeners could discriminate front from back at better than chance performance; however, there are strong indications that the broadband level, not the spectral profile, was used as the primary localization cue. This study indicates the necessity of new CI processing strategies that encode spectral localization cues.
from Ear and Hearing
Within-Subjects Comparison of the HiRes and Fidelity120 Speech Processing Strategies: Speech Perception and Its Relation to Place-Pitch Sensitivity
Conclusions: Findings suggest that Fidelity120 supports small improvements in the perception of spectral speech cues in some Advanced Bionics CI users; however, many users show no clear benefit. Benefits are more likely to occur for vowel spectral cues (related to F1 and F2 frequency) than for consonant spectral cues (related to place of articulation). There was an inconsistent relationship between place-pitch sensitivity and improvements in spectral cue perception with Fidelity120 relative to HiRes. This may partly reflect the small number of sites at which place-pitch thresholds were measured. Contrary to some previous reports, there was no clear evidence that Fidelity120 supports improved sentence recognition in noise.
from Ear and Hearing
Clinical Validity of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status among Patients with Schizophrenia in the Republic of Armenia
There is considerable interest in Armenia toward advancing research and applying evidence-based practice in the treatment of schizophrenia. An area of research that has made little progress is the standardization of reliable and valid tests to measure cognitive functions. The aim of the present study was twofold. The first goal was to adapt the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) into Armenian. The second purpose was to examine the clinical validity of the Armenian-language RBANS in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and healthy comparison controls. Seventy-seven patients with DSM IV TR diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and 77 healthy individuals participated in the study. The cognitive performance of patients was compared with that of healthy controls and U.S. normative data. The Armenian-language RBANS demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties in terms of test validity and reliability. Relative to healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia exhibited impaired performance in all RBANS Index and Subtest tasks. Patients and comparison controls performed below the U.S. data with the greatest differences found in language and attention tasks. The present findings support that the Armenian-language RBANS is a good test for measuring cognitive functions in patients with schizophrenia and the general population. The performance differences between Armenian and U.S. samples highlight the limitation in using English-standardized normative data for cross-cultural studies. The results merit further investigation to disentangle cultural variations from cognitive disturbances.
Errors on the WCST Correlate with Language Proficiency Scores in Spanish-English Bilingual Children
This study examined the relationship between the degree of balance in bilinguals (i.e., degree to which an individual shows equivalence in their level of mastery of two languages) and performance on executive function tests. Twenty-four “more balanced” and 16 “less balanced” Spanish-English bilingual, third- and fourth-grade children completed the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, the English and Spanish Bilingual Verbal Ability Test (BVAT) (an objective measure of English and Spanish language proficiency), and executive function tests (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test [WCST] and Stroop Test). Significant correlations were found between the degree of balance and error scores on the WCST, such that participants with more similar scores on both English and Spanish BVAT (i.e., the more-balanced group) scored lower on perseveration measures of the WCST than the less-balanced group. Between-group comparisons showed significantly fewer perseverative errors and perseverative responses on the WCST in the more-balanced group compared with the less-balanced group. Stroop Test scores did not reveal group differences. These findings support previous results documenting a “bilingual advantage” on executive function tests and provide support for the hypothesis that the degree of balance moderates the relationship between bilingualism and executive functions.
Brainstem auditory response findings in late preterm infants in neonatal intensive care unit
Conclusion: There were BAER abnormalities in the NICU late preterm infants, suggesting compromised brainstem auditory function. Compared to a basically normal BAER in low-risk late preterm infants previously reported, the abnormalities suggest that perinatal problems or complications adversely affect the late preterm auditory brainstem.
from Acta Paediatrica
TEN-YEAR QUALITY ASSURANCE OF THE NATIONWIDE HEARING SCREENING PROGRAMME IN DUTCH NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNITS
Conclusion: The NHS in Dutch NICUs is effective. Timely identification of hearing loss is improving over time.
from Acta Paediatrica
Role of cerebellum in fine speech control in childhood: Persistent dysarthria after surgical treatment for posterior fossa tumour
Dysarthria following surgical resection of childhood posterior fossa tumour (PFT) is most commonly documented in a select group of participants with mutism in the acute recovery phase, thus limiting knowledge of post-operative prognosis for this population of children as a whole. Here we report on the speech characteristics of 13 cases seen long-term after surgical treatment for childhood PFT, unselected for the presence of post-operative mutism (mean time post-surgery = 6y10 m, range 1;4–12;6 years, two had post-operative mutism), and examine factors affecting outcome. Twenty-six age- and sex- matched healthy controls were recruited for comparison. Participants in both groups had speech assessments using detailed perceptual and acoustic methods. Over two-thirds of the group (69%) with removal of PFT had a profile of typically mild dysarthria. Prominent speech deficits included consonant imprecision, reduced rate, monopitch and monoloudness. We conclude that speech deficits may persist even up to 10 years post-surgery in participants who have not shown mutism in the acute phase. Of cases with unilateral lesions, poorer outcomes were associated with right cerebellar tumours compared to left, consistent with the notion based on adult data that speech is controlled by reciprocal right cerebellar/left frontal interactions. These results confirm the important role of the cerebellum in the control of fine speech movements in children.
from Brain and Language
The comparison of the visuo-spatial abilities of dyslexic and normal students in Taiwan and Hong Kong
This study focused on a comparison of the visuo-spatial abilities (correct rate and speed) between dyslexic and normal students in Taiwan and Hong Kong. There were a total of 120 10–12 year old students. Thirty students had been diagnosed as dyslexic in Taiwan (T.W. dyslexia) and thirty students had been diagnosed as dyslexic in Hong Kong (H.K. dyslexia). Overall, 30 of the Taiwanese participants (T.W. normal) and 30 of the Hong Kong participants (H.K. normal) had received no special education. Dyslexic individuals were diagnosed by the doctors’ clinical determination. The material was designed using Autodesk 3ds Max. The participants rotated 3D figures by themselves to find a ball. The results indicated that there was very little difference between dyslexic and normal students. However, the most significant difference between dyslexic and normal student was answering speed, especially in the combined data and the male data. An one-way ANOVA test indicated that in terms of rate and answering speed there was no difference between the H.K. and the T.W. dyslexics. Similar results were also found for the students with normal reading abilities in T.W. and H.K. The criterions for defining the visuo-spatial abilities of dyslexia students appear to be similar in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In addition, there is no difference between students’ visuo-spatial abilities even though Chinese literacy instructions differed in the two areas.
Lexical representation of phonological variants: Evidence from pseudohomophone effects in different regiolects
This study examined the lexical representation of words with two pronunciation variants. We tested whether both the schwa and reduced variants of French words are stored as lexical entries. The results of four experiments in which speakers named pseudohomophones and pseudowords show an advantage for pseudohomophones over matched pseudowords for both variants. As the pseudohomophone effect is assumed to reflect the activation of phonologically matching stored phonological representations, these results suggest that both variants of schwa words are stored. Importantly, the pseudohomophone effect is found for alternating words (Experiments 1 and 2) and for non-alternating words when the non-produced variant corresponds to the word’s spelling (Experiment 3) or is frequently encountered in the speech of speakers of other regiolects (Experiment 4). These findings extend the scope of our previous proposal that words with two variants are stored with two lexemes. This conclusion needs to be integrated in word production models.
from the Journal of Memory and Language
Asperger syndrome, violent thoughts and clinically isolated syndrome
A young man, 23 years old, with a clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), presented violent thoughts during a neurological consultation. He was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome based on a psychiatric and (neuropsychological examination. Possible risk factors for acting-out and the implications for treatment, if CIS would evolve to MS, are discussed based on a review of the literature.
