International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology, 2009
With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated asse... more With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated assessments of pre-verbal and early verbal auditory skills. The LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire is presented here as the first module of the LittlEARS test battery. The LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire was developed and piloted to assess the auditory behaviour of normal hearing children and hearing impaired children who receive a cochlear implant or hearing aid prior to 24 months of age. This paper presents results from two studies: one validating the LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire on children with normal hearing who are German speaking and a second validating the norm curves found after adaptation and administration of the questionnaire to children with normal hearing in 15 different languages. Scores from a group of 218 German and Austrian children with normal hearing between 5 days and 24 months of age were used to create a norm curve. The questionnaire was adapted from the German orig...
Romanian journal of internal medicine = Revue roumaine de médecine interne, 2009
Aminoglycosides (AG) are widely prescribed despite their notorious toxicity. These antibiotics ca... more Aminoglycosides (AG) are widely prescribed despite their notorious toxicity. These antibiotics cause irreversible hearing loss, starting with high frequencies and progressing toward conversational frequencies (0.5-2 kHz), by destroying the acoustic hair cells in the inner ear. The integrity of these cells could be analysed by recording faint sounds that they produce otoacoustic emissions (OAE). The aim of the present study was to monitor and to characterise the acoustic toxicity of the AG using an OAE analyser. We performed a prospective study of 49 patients receiving gentamicin (G), during 2007-2008. We made serial OAE recordings with an ILO 92 analyser (1-8 kHz) on at least 3 occasions: at the start, during treatment and after the cessation of G therapy (1-6 months). The recordings were performed at the patient's bedside and did not require the active participation of the patient. The method is fast, non-invasive, accurate and does not request an ENT specialist. We included pa...
OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitc... more OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitch perception is presented. It was designed to (a) assess perception of pitch in linguistic contexts without the confounds of secondary acoustic cues, (b) be usable with listeners from different language backgrounds, and (c) be suitable for use in a clinical setting. The need for this test battery arises from increased awareness of the importance of prosody in clinical practice, and the development of methods for improving pitch perception in listeners with profound hearing losses. METHODS: Identification and discrimination tasks based on linguistic contexts were developed to establish listeners' just noticeable differences (JNDs) for pitch changes. Stimuli were pseudosentences and pseudowords based on speech from a female speaker, overlain with stylized pitch contours. Target pitch excursions were varied from the 200 Hz baseline to a maximum of 349 Hz. Ninety normal-hearing listeners participated in test validation that assessed goals (a)-(c), established test-retest reliability, and gathered normative data. RESULTS: The JNDs on non-linguistic, control tasks were lower than on linguistic ones, showing that non-linguistic tasks may overestimate pitch perception in speech. Listeners from different language backgrounds scored comparably on most linguistic tasks, and test-retest differences were non-significant. Test usability as evidenced by task duration and subject experience seemed satisfactory for clinical use.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 2009
With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated asse... more With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated assessments of pre-verbal and early verbal auditory skills. The LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire is presented here as the first module of the LittlEARS® test battery. The LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire was developed and piloted to assess the auditory behaviour of normal hearing children and hearing impaired children who receive a cochlear implant or hearing aid prior to 24 months of age. This paper presents results from two studies: one validating the LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire on children with normal hearing who are German speaking and a second validating the norm curves found after adaptation and administration of the questionnaire to children with normal hearing in 15 different languages.Scores from a group of 218 German and Austrian children with normal hearing between 5 days and 24 months of age were used to create a norm curve. The questionnaire was adapted from the German original into English and then 15 other languages to date. Regression curves were found based on parental responses from 3309 normal hearing infants and toddlers. Curves for each language were compared to the original German validation curve.The results of the first study were a norm curve which reflects the age-dependence of auditory behaviour, reliability and homogeneity as a measure of auditory behaviour, and calculations of expected and critical values as a function of age. Results of the second study show that the regression curves found for all the adapted languages are essentially equal to the German norm curve, as no statistically significant differences were found.The LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire is a valid, language-independent tool for assessing the early auditory behaviour of infants and toddlers with normal hearing. The results of this study suggest that the LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire could also be very useful for documenting children's progress with their current amplification, providing evidence of the need for implantation, or highlighting the need for follow-up in other developmental areas.
OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitc... more OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitch perception is presented. It was designed to (a) assess perception of pitch in linguistic contexts without the confounds of secondary acoustic cues, (b) be usable with listeners from different language backgrounds, and (c) be suitable for use in a clinical setting. The need for this test battery arises from increased awareness of the importance of prosody in clinical practice, and the development of methods for improving pitch perception in listeners with profound hearing losses. METHODS: Identification and discrimination tasks based on linguistic contexts were developed to establish listeners' just noticeable differences (JNDs) for pitch changes. Stimuli were pseudosentences and pseudowords based on speech from a female speaker, overlain with stylized pitch contours. Target pitch excursions were varied from the 200 Hz baseline to a maximum of 349 Hz. Ninety normal-hearing listeners participated in test validation that assessed goals (a)-(c), established test-retest reliability, and gathered normative data. RESULTS: The JNDs on non-linguistic, control tasks were lower than on linguistic ones, showing that non-linguistic tasks may overestimate pitch perception in speech. Listeners from different language backgrounds scored comparably on most linguistic tasks, and test-retest differences were non-significant. Test usability as evidenced by task duration and subject experience seemed satisfactory for clinical use.
Special microstructures of the newly developed Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS™)-processed ste... more Special microstructures of the newly developed Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS™)-processed steel induce a new variability in fatigue damage formation and evolution mechanisms. The microporosity and mechanism of fatigue damage formation and growth were invested using X-ray computed tomography and scanning electron microscopy. Systematic observations were made of the variations in the fracture surfaces according to three fatigue damage evolution
International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology, 2009
With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated asse... more With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated assessments of pre-verbal and early verbal auditory skills. The LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire is presented here as the first module of the LittlEARS test battery. The LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire was developed and piloted to assess the auditory behaviour of normal hearing children and hearing impaired children who receive a cochlear implant or hearing aid prior to 24 months of age. This paper presents results from two studies: one validating the LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire on children with normal hearing who are German speaking and a second validating the norm curves found after adaptation and administration of the questionnaire to children with normal hearing in 15 different languages. Scores from a group of 218 German and Austrian children with normal hearing between 5 days and 24 months of age were used to create a norm curve. The questionnaire was adapted from the German orig...
Romanian journal of internal medicine = Revue roumaine de médecine interne, 2009
Aminoglycosides (AG) are widely prescribed despite their notorious toxicity. These antibiotics ca... more Aminoglycosides (AG) are widely prescribed despite their notorious toxicity. These antibiotics cause irreversible hearing loss, starting with high frequencies and progressing toward conversational frequencies (0.5-2 kHz), by destroying the acoustic hair cells in the inner ear. The integrity of these cells could be analysed by recording faint sounds that they produce otoacoustic emissions (OAE). The aim of the present study was to monitor and to characterise the acoustic toxicity of the AG using an OAE analyser. We performed a prospective study of 49 patients receiving gentamicin (G), during 2007-2008. We made serial OAE recordings with an ILO 92 analyser (1-8 kHz) on at least 3 occasions: at the start, during treatment and after the cessation of G therapy (1-6 months). The recordings were performed at the patient's bedside and did not require the active participation of the patient. The method is fast, non-invasive, accurate and does not request an ENT specialist. We included pa...
OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitc... more OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitch perception is presented. It was designed to (a) assess perception of pitch in linguistic contexts without the confounds of secondary acoustic cues, (b) be usable with listeners from different language backgrounds, and (c) be suitable for use in a clinical setting. The need for this test battery arises from increased awareness of the importance of prosody in clinical practice, and the development of methods for improving pitch perception in listeners with profound hearing losses. METHODS: Identification and discrimination tasks based on linguistic contexts were developed to establish listeners' just noticeable differences (JNDs) for pitch changes. Stimuli were pseudosentences and pseudowords based on speech from a female speaker, overlain with stylized pitch contours. Target pitch excursions were varied from the 200 Hz baseline to a maximum of 349 Hz. Ninety normal-hearing listeners participated in test validation that assessed goals (a)-(c), established test-retest reliability, and gathered normative data. RESULTS: The JNDs on non-linguistic, control tasks were lower than on linguistic ones, showing that non-linguistic tasks may overestimate pitch perception in speech. Listeners from different language backgrounds scored comparably on most linguistic tasks, and test-retest differences were non-significant. Test usability as evidenced by task duration and subject experience seemed satisfactory for clinical use.
International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 2009
With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated asse... more With more children receiving cochlear implants during infancy, there is a need for validated assessments of pre-verbal and early verbal auditory skills. The LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire is presented here as the first module of the LittlEARS® test battery. The LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire was developed and piloted to assess the auditory behaviour of normal hearing children and hearing impaired children who receive a cochlear implant or hearing aid prior to 24 months of age. This paper presents results from two studies: one validating the LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire on children with normal hearing who are German speaking and a second validating the norm curves found after adaptation and administration of the questionnaire to children with normal hearing in 15 different languages.Scores from a group of 218 German and Austrian children with normal hearing between 5 days and 24 months of age were used to create a norm curve. The questionnaire was adapted from the German original into English and then 15 other languages to date. Regression curves were found based on parental responses from 3309 normal hearing infants and toddlers. Curves for each language were compared to the original German validation curve.The results of the first study were a norm curve which reflects the age-dependence of auditory behaviour, reliability and homogeneity as a measure of auditory behaviour, and calculations of expected and critical values as a function of age. Results of the second study show that the regression curves found for all the adapted languages are essentially equal to the German norm curve, as no statistically significant differences were found.The LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire is a valid, language-independent tool for assessing the early auditory behaviour of infants and toddlers with normal hearing. The results of this study suggest that the LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire could also be very useful for documenting children's progress with their current amplification, providing evidence of the need for implantation, or highlighting the need for follow-up in other developmental areas.
OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitc... more OBJECTIVES: The auditory speech sounds evaluation 2009 test battery for assessment of speech pitch perception is presented. It was designed to (a) assess perception of pitch in linguistic contexts without the confounds of secondary acoustic cues, (b) be usable with listeners from different language backgrounds, and (c) be suitable for use in a clinical setting. The need for this test battery arises from increased awareness of the importance of prosody in clinical practice, and the development of methods for improving pitch perception in listeners with profound hearing losses. METHODS: Identification and discrimination tasks based on linguistic contexts were developed to establish listeners' just noticeable differences (JNDs) for pitch changes. Stimuli were pseudosentences and pseudowords based on speech from a female speaker, overlain with stylized pitch contours. Target pitch excursions were varied from the 200 Hz baseline to a maximum of 349 Hz. Ninety normal-hearing listeners participated in test validation that assessed goals (a)-(c), established test-retest reliability, and gathered normative data. RESULTS: The JNDs on non-linguistic, control tasks were lower than on linguistic ones, showing that non-linguistic tasks may overestimate pitch perception in speech. Listeners from different language backgrounds scored comparably on most linguistic tasks, and test-retest differences were non-significant. Test usability as evidenced by task duration and subject experience seemed satisfactory for clinical use.
Special microstructures of the newly developed Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS™)-processed ste... more Special microstructures of the newly developed Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS™)-processed steel induce a new variability in fatigue damage formation and evolution mechanisms. The microporosity and mechanism of fatigue damage formation and growth were invested using X-ray computed tomography and scanning electron microscopy. Systematic observations were made of the variations in the fracture surfaces according to three fatigue damage evolution
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