Sentences recognition thresholds in normal hearing individuals in the presence of inciding noise from different angles

CONCLUSION: The following sentence recognition thresholds in the noise, in sound field, were obtained for these signal-to-noise ratios: 0° – 0° = -7.56 dB; -0º – 90º = -11.11 dB; -0º – 180° = -9.75 dB; 0º – 270º = -10.43 dB. The better thresholds were obtained with the incidence angles of 0º – 90º and 0º – 270º, followed by the 0º – 180º condition, and, finally, by the 0º – 0º condition. The most unfavorable hearing condition was that in which the noise was in the same incidence angle of the speech, in front of the evaluated subject.

from Revista de Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia

Acclimatization effect in speech recognition: evaluation without hearing aids

CONCLUSION: There was a progressive reduction of sentences recognition thresholds and signal/noise ratios indicating an improvement in performance even when assessing the individuals without the hearing aids. This improvement can be related to the effect of acclimatization.

from Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica

Acclimatization effect on new users of linear and non linear hearing aids

CONCLUSION: It was not found any influences of the period of amplification use over the benefit obtained from hearing aids. There were no differences between the results achieved by new users of linear amplification and those of new users of non linear amplification.

from Revista de Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia

Phoneme Discrimination Picture Test: a proposal

from Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia

CONCLUSION: The aims of the present study were successfully reached, given that PDPT accomplishes what it was proposed to do. Further, the test should be used in a pilot study in order to examine whether its words and pictures are adequate to the age range it is supposed to evaluate. Afterwards, it must be applied in children from several regions of the country to be properly standardized.

Performance of elderly in a speech in noise test

from Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica

BACKGROUND: speech perception of elderly, in silence and in the presence of background noise.
AIM: to characterize and compare the hearing abilities of elderly in a monaural speech perception test, in the presence and absence of background noise (Speech Discrimination Test – SDT and Speech Perception in Noise – SPIN).
METHOD: Participants of this study were 55 subjects of both genders, 60 years old or above, distributed in two groups: Control Group (CG), constituted by elders with no hearing loss and Study Group (SG), constituted by elders with symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss. The SPIN test was used, initially with the presentation of a word list in silence and later in the presence of Speech Noise.
RESULTS: no difference was observed between genders in the SDT and the SPIN test. Correlation with age was observed only in the SDT for SG. A significant difference was observed when comparing the performance of the groups in the SDT and SPIN test. Regarding the presence of substitutions in the articulation of words, it was observed that it occurred in both groups and was more frequent in SPIN test, especially for the SG.
CONCLUSION: the presence of the noise during the production of speech sounds is disadvantageous for elders, independently of the presence of hearing loss, but having a higher impact for those with hearing loss problems.