Baggekamp5641

Specificity was assessed only in conjunction with sensitivity, with values from 23% to 25% in two studies, and it reached 80% in a single study. Accuracy was assessed higher than 76% in one of the selected articles. The methodological quality of the studies demonstrated low risk of bias, and there was no significant concern related to applicability of the studies. CONCLUSIONS According to the selected studies, multichannel intraluminal impedance-pH was considered a safe and effective tool, presenting higher sensitivity values than pHmetry regarding the diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux disease. BACKGROUND Although numerous studies have examined regional and racial-ethnic labeling of talker identity, few have evaluated speech perception skills of listeners from the southern United States. PURPOSE The objective of the study was to examine the effect of competition, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), race, and sex on sentence recognition performance in talkers from the Southern American English dialect region. RESEARCH DESIGN A four-factor mixed-measures design was used. STUDY SAMPLE Forty-eight normal-hearing young African American and White adults participated. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSES The Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set was used in quiet and in continuous and interrupted noise and multitalker babble at SNRs of -10, -5, 0, and 5 dB. RESULTS Significant main effects of competition (p less then 0.001) and SNR (p less then 0.001) and a competition by SNR interaction were found (p less then 0.001). Performance improved with increasing SNRs. Performance was also greater in the interrupted broadband noise at poorer SNRs, relative to the other competitors. Multitalker babble performance was significantly poorer than the continuous noise at the poorer SNRs. There was no effect of race or sex on performance in quiet or competition. CONCLUSIONS Although African American English and White American English talkers living in the same geographic region demonstrate differences in speech production, their speech perception in noise does not appear to differ under the conditions examined in this study. American Academy of Audiology.BACKGROUND Pediatric hearing instrument fitting is optimally performed with individually obtained real-ear-to-coupler difference (RECD) measurements. If these measurements cannot be obtained, predicted values based on age are used. Recent evidence obtained from children aged 3-11 years suggests that head circumference (HC) may be a viable alternative or addition to age for use in RECD prediction. PURPOSE The purpose of the present study was to determine if HC can be used to predict RECDs in infants, children, and adults. RESEARCH DESIGN A correlational design was used. HC and RECD values were measured in all participants. STUDY SAMPLE Participants were 278 North American infants and children (136 males and 142 females) aged 1.6 months to 11 years and 109 adults (42 males and 67 females) aged 18 years to 83 years. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS After otoscopic inspection and immittance measurements were performed to assess candidacy for inclusion in the study, HC was measured twice for all participants and a single RECD measure was obtained for each participant at twelve frequencies (250 through 12500 Hz). The reliability of HC measurements was assessed with an intraclass correlation analysis. Linear regression analyses were performed with age and HC as predictor variables and RECDs as the dependent variable. RESULTS Analysis indicated good reliability of the HC measurement. The relationships between RECD and HC were comparable with the relationships between RECD and age. Combining HC and age did not improve predictive accuracy. CONCLUSIONS HC can be used in children and adults as an alternative metric in the prediction of RECDs when individual RECDs cannot be obtained. read more American Academy of Audiology.BACKGROUND Previous studies in a large population of typically developing (TD) children and a small clinical group showed high correlations between the dichotic and diotic conditions of the Dichotic Digits difference Test (DDdT), as well as between DDdT performance and measures of memory and attention. PURPOSE The purpose of the study was to investigate the performance on the DDdT in a large clinical sample. RESEARCH DESIGN Correlational analysis between the DDdT diotic condition and the dichotic free recall (FR) right-ear, left-ear, and total (ear-averaged) conditions, as well as between DDdT and memory performance. STUDY SAMPLE One hundred one children (6 years 3 months to 15 years 0 month, mean 9 years 6 months) were referred for assessment to the Australian Hearing Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) service. Results were compared with data from 112 TD children collected from previously published studies. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Z-scores were used to account for the effect of age on performan dichotic performance. Random measurement error accounted for a further 16%. CONCLUSIONS Factors other than dichotic performance strongly impact a child's ability to perform a dichotic digit listening task. This result has widespread implications in respect to the interpretation of CAPD test results. American Academy of Audiology.BACKGROUND Despite improvements in cochlear implant (CI) technology, pediatric CI recipients continue to have more difficulty understanding speech than their typically hearing peers in background noise. A variety of strategies have been evaluated to help mitigate this disparity, such as signal processing, remote microphone technology, and microphone placement. Previous studies regarding microphone placement used speech processors that are now dated, and most studies investigating the improvement of speech recognition in background noise included adult listeners only. PURPOSE The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of microphone location and beamforming technology on speech understanding for pediatric CI recipients in noise. RESEARCH DESIGN A prospective, repeated-measures, within-participant design was used to compare performance across listening conditions. STUDY SAMPLE A total of nine children (aged 6.6 to 15.3 years) with at least one Advanced Bionics CI were recruited for this study.