Search results for "Hearing"
showing 10 items of 473 documents
A method for determining precise electrical hearing thresholds in cochlear implant users
2018
A psychoacoustic procedure designed for the precise assessment of perceptional threshold (T-level) in cochlear implant (CI) users is presented. The impact of this procedure on speech perception was investigated.Individual T-level measurements were obtained with the proposed procedure and three different speech processor fitting conditions were applied: (1) fitting familiar to the subject, T-levels unchanged, (2) T-level set to thresholds determined with the new procedure, (3) T-level set to thresholds determined with the new procedure, but T-level is decreased by 10 clinical units (CU). The impact of the different fitting conditions was measured by means of categorical loudness scaling (CLS…
Acoustical analysis of Spanish vowels produced by laryngectomized subjects.
2001
The purpose of this study was to describe the acoustic characteristics of Spanish vowels in subjects who had undergone a total laryngectomy and to compare the results with those obtained in a control group of subjects who spoke normally. Our results are discussed in relation to those obtained in previous studies with English-speaking laryngectomized patients. The comparison between English and Spanish, which differ widely in the size of their vowel inventories, will help us to determine specific or universal vowel production characteristics in these patients. Our second objective was to relate the acoustic properties of these vowels to the perceptual data obtained in our previous work (J. L…
The P600-as-P3 hypothesis revisited: single-trial analyses reveal that the late EEG positivity following linguistically deviant material is reaction …
2014
The P600, a late positive ERP component following linguistically deviant stimuli, is commonly seen as indexing structural, high-level processes, e.g. of linguistic (re)analysis. It has also been identified with the P3 (P600-as-P3 hypothesis), which is thought to reflect a systemic neuromodulator release facilitating behavioural shifts and is usually response time aligned. We investigated single-trial alignment of the P600 to response, a critical prediction of the P600-as-P3 hypothesis. Participants heard sentences containing morphosyntactic and semantic violations and responded via a button press. The elicited P600 was perfectly response aligned, while an N400 following semantic deviations …
When tinnitus loudness and annoyance are discrepant: audiological characteristics and psychological profile.
2006
This study evaluates sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patients reporting discrepant levels of tinnitus loudness and annoyance. 4958 subjects recruited from a national tinnitus association completed a comprehensive screening questionnaire including Klockhoff and Lindblom’s loudness grading system and the psychometric Mini-TQ (Tinnitus Questionnaire). There was a moderate correlation of 0.45 between loudness and annoyance. Of the subjects reporting very loud tinnitus, about one third had only mild or moderate annoyance scores. They were not different from those with high annoyance regarding age, gender and tinnitus duration, but annoyance was increased when subjects had additi…
Treatment of central and sensorineural tinnitus with orally administered Melatonin and Sulodexide: personal experience from a randomized controlled s…
2008
Since very little is understood about the exact aetiology of tinnitus, this has made treatment of the condition difficult. Even though approximately 10-15% of the general population suffer from tinnitus, only 2% consider it serious enough to warrant any treatment. The main problem arising from tinnitus is the disturbance it causes not only in day to day life but also in sleep, leading to fatigue and general discomfort. The present study focused on the effect of Melatonin in conjunction with Sulodexide as a treatment method for tinnitus. Overall, 102 patients suffering from tinnitus were evaluated in a prospective randomised controlled study conducted in a tertiary care ENT department. After…
Early language and behavioral regulation skills as predictors of social outcomes.
2012
Purpose In the present study, the authors examined the prospective associations among early language skills, behavioral regulation skills, and 2 aspects of school-age social functioning (adaptability and social skills). Method The study sample consisted of children with and without a familial risk for dyslexia. The authors analyzed the relations among children’s language (at age 2;6 [years;months] and age 5;0), behavioral regulation skills (at age 5;0), and social functioning (at age 8;0) using structural equation modeling. Subgroups of children with respect to language and behavioral regulation skills (at age 5;0) were identified through the use of mixture modeling. Results Among at-risk …
Hearing impairment as an early sign of alpha-mannosidosis in children with a mild phenotype: Report of seven new cases.
2019
Alpha-mannosidosis (AM) is a very rare (prevalence: 1/500000 births) autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disorder. It is characterized by multi-systemic involvement associated with progressive intellectual disability, hearing loss, skeletal anomalies, and coarse facial features. The spectrum is wide, from very severe and lethal to a milder phenotype that usually progresses slowly. AM is caused by a deficiency of lysosomal alpha-mannosidase. A diagnosis can be established by measuring the activity of lysosomal alpha-mannosidase in leucocytes and screening for abnormal urinary excretion of mannose-rich oligosaccharides. Genetic confirmation is obtained with the identification of MAN2B1 muta…
Management of Cochlear Implant Electrode Migration.
2016
The present study reviewed a cochlear implant (CI) patient population after surgery, which received a free-fitting electrode carrier designed for hearing preservation. The aim was to determine the rate of electrode migration of the CI electrodes and present clinical and surgical implications.Retrospective patient review.Tertiary referral university hospital.Two hundred seventy-eight patients implanted uni- or bilaterally with lateral wall electrodes designed for hearing preservation (358 implants). The control group was 323 patients implanted uni- or bilaterally with preformed perimodiolar electrodes (468 implants).Determination of CI electrode migration was conducted according to a clinica…
The effect of MPEG audio compression on multidimensional set of voice parameters
2002
The MPEG-1 Layer 3 compression schema of audio signal, or commonly known as mp3, has caused a great impact in recent years as it has reached high compression rates while also conserving a high sound quality. Previous listening tests have shown that music and speech samples compressed at high bitrates are virtually indistinguishable from the original samples, but very little is known about how compression acoustically affects the voice signal. In Experiment 1 the spectral composition of original and compressed speech signals were analyzed by means of the Long-Term Average Spectrum using the Computerized Speech Laboratory (Kay Elemetrics Corp. (Pine Brook, NJ, USA)). In Experiment 2 a set of …
Characteristics of tinnitus with or without hearing loss: Clinical observations in Sicilian tinnitus patients
2010
Objective: To analyze the clinical characteristics of tinnitus both in normal hearing subjects and in patients with hearing loss. Methods: The study considered 312 tinnitus sufferers, 176 males and 136 females, ranging from 21 to 83 years of age, who were referred to the Audiology Section of the Department of Bio-technology of Palermo University. The following parameters were considered: age, sex, hearing threshold, tinnitus laterality, tinnitus duration, tinnitus measurements and subjective disturbance caused by tinnitus. The sample was divided into two groups: Group 1 (G1) subjects with normal hearing; Group 2 (G2) subjects with hearing loss. Results: Among the patients considered, 115 ha…