Effects of Unilateral and Bilateral Hearing Aid Fitting on Speech Recognition in Noise in Children
QIU Xinyue
XI Xin
LIU Xiaoming
YUAN Zhibin
Abstract：Objective To report effects of unilateral and bilateral hearing aid fitting on speech recognition performance in preschool children against spatial noises.Methods Preschool children(n=23)with bilateral hearing loss were recruited.The standard Chinese spoken word-picture identification test-adaptive version(MAPID-A)was used for disyllabic word test in adaptive speech spectrum noise to at SNR50.The target speech sound was presented from the front,and the noise from the front,right or left.Speech recognition performances with unilateral or bilateral hearing aid fitting were compared.Results With the noise from the front,there was a significant difference in speech recognition threshold between the two hearing aid fitting modes(M=2.38,P<0.05).With the noise comes from left or right side,unilateral hearing aid fitting on the contralateral side significantly improved speech recognition(M=4.90,P<0.05;M=5.02,P<0.05).Compared to mixed speech and noise from the front,bilateral hearing aid fitting showed no significant spatial release from masking(SRM)when speech and noise were separately presented on left or right side(M=0.07,P>0.05;M=-0.72,P>0.05).There were also significant individual variability in speech recognition-in-noise performance among these preschool children.Conclusion Compared with the unilateral hearing aid fitting,bilateral fitting can improve speech recognition in noise in children,although with minimal impact on spatial auditory ability in noise.
Keywords：hearing aidbinaural hearingspeech recognition thresholdspatial release from masking
Publication Date：2024-12-28
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：7( 923-929 )