自适应方向性模式助听器对听障儿童不同语境下语音识别的影响

The Effect of Adaptive Directional Hearing Aid on Speech Recognition in Hearing-Impaired Children

目的评估轻度至重度双侧感音神经性听障儿童在言语噪声和言语环境中的言语识别与完全自适应定向助听器算法激活的相关性。方法选取14例(5~14岁)听障儿童配戴实验室助听器,对全向性(omnidirectional,OMNI)和完全自适应方向性助听器设置的开放式词识别阈值进行自适应测量,对每个助听器在3种环境下进行评估。结果无论声源位置处于受试者的0°、135°、225°或300°,在噪声条件下,完全自适应方向性与OMNI相比,信噪比平均提高4 dB。在言语掩蔽声情况下,听障儿童在完全自适应方向性和OMNI设置下表现类似。结论与OMNI相比,即使听障儿童没有面对目标源,完全自适应方向性的助听器算法仍提高了其在稳态噪声下的言语识别。当背景噪声为言语声时,该算法不影响言语识别。需要进一步的实验评估儿童在噪声和言语掩蔽物存在的各种空间配置下的表现。

Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate speech-in-noise and speech-in-speech recognition associated with activation of a fully adaptive directional hearing aid algorithm in children with mild to severe bilateral sensory/neural hearing loss.Methods Fourteen children(5-14 years old)who are hard of hearing participated in this study.Participants wore laboratory hearing aids.Open-set word recognition thresholds were measured adaptively for 2 hearing aid settings:(a)omnidirectional(OMNI)and(b)fully adaptive directionality.Each hearing aid setting was evaluated in 3 listening conditions.Results The average improvement in signal-to-noise ratio when comparing fully adaptive directionality to OMNI was 4.0 dB in noise,regardless of target location.Children performed similarly with fully adaptive directionality and OMNI settings in the presence of the speech maskers.Conclusion Compared to OMNI,fully adaptive directionality improved speech recognition in steady noise for children who are hard of hearing,even when they were not facing the target source.This algorithm did not affect speech recognition when the background noise was speech.Additional experiments are required to further evaluate children's performance under a variety of spatial configurations in the presence of both noise and speech maskers.