Speech in noise training helps speech perception among people with cochlear implants. The more training, the better speech in noise perception, the study finds.
Speech perception in noise is often a challenge for many cochlear implant (CI) users in everyday life. Therefore, a study tested how training of perception of speech in noise improved speech perception among people with cochlear implants.
Sentence in noise test
To assess the effect of training on speech perception in noise, a group of pre-lingually cochlear implant users with hearing loss with years of cochlear implant experience was compared with normal hearing young adults. All the participants followed single- and multisession training using the same training protocol.
The participants in the study included 22 cochlear implant users with pre-lingual hearing loss and 30 people with normal hearing. A sentence in noise test was used for the training. All the participants took part in a single training session. Six people with normal hearing and seven people with cochlear implants continued training for four additional training sessions. All seven cochlear implant users trained for an additional five days, totalling 10 training sessions.
Improvements
Following the single-session training, the cochlear implant users showed “speech reception thresholds in noise” (SRTn) that were 9 to 10 dB higher (worse) than the normal hearing participants. After the five first days of training, five of seven cochlear implant users reduced this disadvantage by half. After 10 days of training, the cochlear implant participants improved in performance by 4.1 dB signal-noise-ratio (SNR).
According to the authors, the study is the first to demonstrate the course of learning and improvements in SRTn following training speech perception in noise in cochlear implant users with pre-lingual hearing loss.
The study, “Training of Speech Perception in Noise in Pre-Lingual Hearing Impaired Adults With Cochlear Implants Compared With Normal Hearing Adults”, was published in the journal Otology & Neurotology
Sources: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and Otology & Neurotology