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ABSTRACT: In order to understand the communicative abilities of hearing impaired children in noisy situations and their communication problems, this study was undertaken to examine speech recognition at different background noise levels, and to compare how context cues in noisy situations affect speech recognition.
Thirty-four children with severe/profound hearing impairment were enrolled. Fifteen children had cochlear implants (CIs) and 19 used hearing aids (HAs). The Mandarin Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) test was performed under two levels of background noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) 10 dB and SNR 0 dB (high and low levels, respectively). High predictive (HP) and low predictive (LP) sentences SPIN test scores were recorded to test the effect of context cues on speech recognition.
Performance was significantly better in children with CIs (SNR 10: mean, 49.44, standard deviation [SD], 13.90; SNR 0: mean, 31.95, SD, 15.72) than in children with HAs (SNR 10: mean, 33.33, SD, 9.72; SNR 0: mean, 19.52, SD, 6.67; P<0.05) in both noise backgrounds, but no significant interaction was found between devices and background noise level. Hearing-impaired children performed better at SNR 10 dB (mean, 40.44; SD, 14.12) than at SNR 0 dB (mean, 25.0; SD, 12.98), significantly (P<0.001). Performance for HP sentences (mean, 38.6; SD, 12.66) was significantly (P<0.001) better than that for LP sentences (mean, 25.25; SD, 12.93). An interaction was found to between background noise level and contextual cues in sentences (F=8.47, P<0.01).
The study shows that SNR conditions significantly influence speech recognition performance in children with severe/profound hearing impairment. Under better SNR listening situations, children have better speech recognition when listening to sentences with contextual cues. Children with CIs perform better than children with HAs at both noise levels.
Clinical and Experimental Otorhinolaryngology 04/2012; 5 Suppl 1:S73-5. · 0.92 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Children's developmental problems vary, with some easier to identify than others. The accuracy of caregivers' initial identification of children's developmental problems is important in the timely treatment of those problems by medical professionals. In this study, we investigated the degree to which caregivers' initial identification of children's developmental problems matched the clinical assessment by a team of qualified professionals in a developmental assessment unit of a medical center in Taiwan. The practitioners included a pediatric neurologist, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, and two speech therapists. Caregivers of 943 children (age range: 2-80 months; mean: 37.7 months) who visited the unit for a suspected developmental problem were interviewed about the chief problem that led to the caregivers bringing their children to the unit. The results showed high agreement in the global and the motor domains between the caregivers and the professionals, and low agreement in the cognitive and the speech/language domains. The agreement was significantly related to the caregivers' native origin and socioeconomic status index (SSI). Caregivers with a foreign origin (immigrant mothers) and low SSI were more likely to misidentify their children's problems. It is recommended that pediatric practitioners offer continuing education to caregivers, especially in the domains of cognitive and speech/language development.
Research in developmental disabilities 03/2011; 32(5):1714-21. · 4.41 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Articulation training with many kinds of stimulus and messages such as visual, voice, and articulatory information can teach user to pronounce correctly and improve user’s articulatory ability. In this paper, an articulation training system with intelligent interface and multimode feedbacks is proposed to improve the performance of articulation training. Clinical knowledge of speech evaluation is used to design the dependent network. Then, automatic speech recognition with dependent network is applied to identify the pronunciation errors. Besides, hierarchical Bayesian network is proposed to recognize user’s emotion from speeches. With the information of pronunciation errors and user’s emotional state, the articulation training sentences can be dynamically selected. Finally, a 3D facial animation is provided to teach users to pronounce a sentence by using speech, lip motion, and tongue motion. Experimental results reveal the usefulness of proposed method and system.
Asian Language Processing, International Conference on. 12/2009;
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ABSTRACT: To compare tone discrimination, speech perception, and general listening benefit in Mandarin-speaking children using standard HiRes and after 1, 3, and 6 months of HiRes 120 use. The HiResolution Bionic Ear is an implantable prosthesis designed to provide access to sound and to improve perception of speech via electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve. The newest sound-processing strategy is HiRes with Fidelity 120 (HiRes 120). In HiRes 120, the input signal is analyzed in greater spectral detail than with original HiRes to achieve a maximum of 120 spectral bands. HiRes 120 is expected to provide more benefit than the original HiRes because of the increased spectral resolution.
Cochlear implant/tertiary referral center.
Seven children, aged 5 to 12 years, who had been implanted with a CII or 90K implant with a fully inserted electrode array and at least 10 contiguous programmable electrodes.
Tone discrimination, consonant identification, the Mandarin lexical neighborhood test (M-LNT), and the speech perception in noise (SPIN) tests were administered in 4 sessions: at a baseline visit with standard HiRes before being fit with HiRes 120 and at 1, 3, and 6 months after using HiRes 120. Each subject and his or her parents also completed a strategy preference questionnaire after using HiRes 120 for 6 months.
Statistically significant improvements from baseline with HiRes to 6 months with HiRes 120 were found for tone discrimination (61.4 to 73.2%, p = 0.006) and for SPIN low predictability (65.7 to 74.7%, p = 0.039). Mean score changes of 47.4 to 50.4% (p = 0.499) for consonant perception, 82.9 to 86.4% for M-LNT (easy words; p = 0.322), 77.1 to 81.0% for M-LNT (hard words; p = 0.423), and 72.3 to 78.5% for SPIN high predictability (p = 0.427) showed trends for improvement but were not statistically significant. Questionnaire results indicated that all children and parents preferred HiRes 120 to HiRes. Strength of preference was 8.9 for children and 8.1 for parents on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = weak preference, 10 = strong preference).
Taken together, the improved tone discrimination and speech perception results, along with subjective improvements in speech fluency, discrimination, and music appreciation, indicate a trend toward superior listening benefit with HiRes 120 compared with standard HiRes in Mandarin-speaking children.
Otology & neurotology: official publication of the American Otological Society, American Neurotology Society [and] European Academy of Otology and Neurotology 10/2009; 30(6):750-7. · 1.44 Impact Factor
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2009 International Conference on Asian Language Processing, IALP 2009, Singapore, December 7-9, 2009; 01/2009
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Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, IJCNN 2008, part of the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, WCCI 2008, Hong Kong, China, June 1-6, 2008; 01/2008
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ABSTRACT: Articulation problems seriously reduce speech intelligent and speech communication and affect person's interpersonal communication, personality, social adaptive capacity, and learning ability. In the clinical protocol, language therapist utilizes clinical experience to individualized assessment, treatment, and training. However, the manpower of language therapists and the assistant instruments are insufficient. In this paper, an articulation assessment and training system is proposed to assist language therapists and articulation disorders. The articulation errors in phonetic are analyzed and modeled by clinical linguist. Using clinical experience of language therapists, articulation training strategies for each type of articulation errors are designed. The articulation characteristics of user can be effectively detected. Speechreading information is responded to improve the performance of training program. The articulation training strategy is automatically selected to suggest articulation disorder in language training activities. Experimental results reveal the practicability of proposed method and system
Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2007. ICASSP 2007. IEEE International Conference on; 05/2007 · 4.63 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The present study investigated whether moderate amounts of computer-assisted speech training can improve the speech recognition performance of hearing-impaired children. Ten Mandarin-speaking children (3 hearing aid users and 7 cochlear implant users) participated in the study. Training was conducted at home using a personal computer for half an hour per day, 5 days per week, for a period of 10 weeks. Results showed significant improvements in subjects' vowel, consonant, and tone recognition performance after training. The improved performance was largely retained for 2 months after training was completed. These results suggest that moderate amounts of auditory training, using a computer-based auditory rehabilitation tool with minimal supervision, can be effective in improving the speech performance of hearing-impaired children.
Audiology and Neurotology 02/2007; 12(5):307-12. · 2.46 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to determine whether age at cochlear implantation influences open-set speech perception in children after long-term use of the implant device.
Twenty-eight congenitally deafened children, receiving implants of Nucleus CI24M devices, were divided into two groups: (1) CI < 3: those who received implants before 3 years of age and (2) CI > 3: those who received implants after 3 years of age. We compared open-set speech perception in CI < 3 and CI > 3 after 4-5 years of device use. Speech perception tests were conducted using the Mandarin Lexical Neighborhood Test (M-LNT). Unpaired t-test was applied for statistical analysis, and p < 0.05 was considered significant.
In CI < 3, the average of percent correct was 80.0 +/- 8.8 and 70.5 +/- 9.2% on, respectively, the easy and hard versions of the M-LNT. By contrast, in CI > 3, the average percent correct was 62.5 +/- 19.9 and 59.1 +/- 15.2%, respectively. Regardless of the M-LNT version used, CI < 3 performed significantly better than CI > 3 (easy, p = 0.005 versus hard, p = 0.022).
The present investigation demonstrated that age at implantation influences open-set speech perception of cochlear implanted children 4-5 years after device connection. Implantation before 3 years of age promotes the development of open-set speech perception abilities in congenitally deafened children.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 02/2006; 70(2):207-11. · 1.17 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Speech intelligibility, the extent to which the speakers can be understood verbally by their listeners, is an evaluator for the effectiveness of cochlear implantation. Thus, our goals were to evaluate the result of a tonal language through comparing the speech intelligibility between normal-hearing and implanted children who speak Mandarin, and to evaluate the relationship between speech intelligibility and duration of implants use. The effects of the age at implantation were also evaluated.
Twenty-six children (mean age of 5.9 years), who were congenitally deaf and implanted age at 3.5 years, were compared with 26 normal-hearing children (mean age of 5.84 years). The average post-implanted time was more than 6 months. Speech intelligibility was represented with the speech intelligibility ratings (SIR) and the correct percentage of dictation. The relationships between speech intelligibility, age at implantation and duration of implant were evaluated by linear regression analysis.
Speech intelligibility of most subjects ranked from SIR category 3-5. The average correct perception rate (CI group/normal group) of words, consonants, vowels, and tones were 42.5%, 64.9%, 73.5%, and 72.3%, respectively. These differences were statistically significant (p<0.001). Speech intelligibility was positively correlated with age only in the normal-hearing group. Speech intelligibility in the implanted group was negatively correlated with age at implantation but positively correlated with the duration of implant.
Speech intelligibility of tonal language was poorer in implanted children than normal-hearing children, but their communication outcomes were satisfactory when measured with SIR. Speech intelligibility is better if the age at implantation is younger or duration of implants use is longer.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 04/2005; 69(4):505-11. · 1.17 Impact Factor
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Cochlear Implants International 10/2004; 5 Suppl 1:132-4.
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Cochlear Implants International 10/2004; 5 Suppl 1:201-3.
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Cochlear Implants International 10/2004; 5 Suppl 1:203-5.
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ABSTRACT: Mental function is considered to affect the post-operative outcomes of deaf children with cochlear implants. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of mental function on the auditory performance in children with cochlear implants.
In a retrospective review of data, 26 pre-lingual deafened children received pre-operative evaluation of mental function and were divided into normal and retarded groups. Categories of auditory performance scale (CAP) was conducted at 1-year intervals after implantation. ANCOVA was used for statistic analysis.
The average scores of auditory performance in normal group (n=14) were 3.93 (S.D. 1.07) and 5.86 (S.D. 0.95) at 1- and 2-year post-implantation. While the average scores in the retarded group were 2.5 (S.D. 1.51) and 4.17 (S.D. 1.85), both groups demonstrated obvious improvement in speech perception (F 103.12, P<0.001) during the first 2 post-operative years. The auditory performance in the normal group was significantly superior to the retarded group (F 8.67, P<0.01). However, the interaction between the duration of the device use and mental status showed no significant difference in the auditory perception performance (F 1.575, P=0.222).
The results revealed the mental function plays as one of the predictive parameters of auditory performance in profoundly hearing impaired children after cochlear implantation.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 09/2004; 68(9):1185-8. · 1.17 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The purposes of this study were to examine (1). whether the benefit of cochlear implants in Mandarin-speaking congenitally deaf children persists over a 2-year follow-up period, and (2). whether the age of the child at implantation affects the acquisition of speech perception by young deafened children.
Sixteen congenitally deaf children received implants of Nucleus CI24M devices. Speech perception tests were conducted using the Mandarin Auditory Perception Test Battery at 6-month intervals after connection of the device. We determined the benefit of cochlear implants by monitoring percent correct scores between 12 and 24 months after implantation. Regression analysis was used to correlate the measures of progress and the age at implantation.
In the comparison of performance at 12 and 24 months post-connection, subjects performed significantly better at 24 than at 12 months in spondee, vowel, and consonant tests (P<0.05). In phrase and sentence tests, the mean score improved over time with device use, but the difference was not significant (P=0.066 and 0.067, respectively). However, no obvious improvement in average score was found in tone tests (P=0.386). Progress (improvement in speech perception) at 12 and 24 months had moderate negative correlations with age at implantation in spondee, vowel, phrase and sentence tests (P<0.05), but no correlation with age in consonant (P=0.20) and tone tests (P=0.26).
The result, in accordance with the reports on Western language-speaking children, showed cochlear implants increasingly benefit Mandarin-speaking congenitally deaf children over a 2-year post-implantation period. Because age at implantation negatively correlates with improved speech perception after implantation, congenitally affected children with profound deafness (if they cannot obtain enough benefit from hearing aids) should receive implants as early as possible.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 03/2003; 67(3):247-53. · 1.17 Impact Factor
