Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Speech detection and discrimination ability are important measures of hearing ability that may inform crucial audiological intervention decisions for individuals with a hearing impairment. However, behavioral assessment of speech discrimination can be difficult and inaccurate in infants, prompting t...

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Autores principales: Mao, Darren, Wunderlich, Julia, Savkovic, Borislav, Jeffreys, Emily, Nicholls, Namita, Lee, Onn Wah, Eager, Michael, McKay, Colette M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8671543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34907273
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03595-z
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author Mao, Darren
Wunderlich, Julia
Savkovic, Borislav
Jeffreys, Emily
Nicholls, Namita
Lee, Onn Wah
Eager, Michael
McKay, Colette M.
author_facet Mao, Darren
Wunderlich, Julia
Savkovic, Borislav
Jeffreys, Emily
Nicholls, Namita
Lee, Onn Wah
Eager, Michael
McKay, Colette M.
author_sort Mao, Darren
collection PubMed
description Speech detection and discrimination ability are important measures of hearing ability that may inform crucial audiological intervention decisions for individuals with a hearing impairment. However, behavioral assessment of speech discrimination can be difficult and inaccurate in infants, prompting the need for an objective measure of speech detection and discrimination ability. In this study, the authors used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as the objective measure. Twenty-three infants, 2 to 10 months of age participated, all of whom had passed newborn hearing screening or diagnostic audiology testing. They were presented with speech tokens at a comfortable listening level in a natural sleep state using a habituation/dishabituation paradigm. The authors hypothesized that fNIRS responses to speech token detection as well as speech token contrast discrimination could be measured in individual infants. The authors found significant fNIRS responses to speech detection in 87% of tested infants (false positive rate 0%), as well as to speech discrimination in 35% of tested infants (false positive rate 9%). The results show initial promise for the use of fNIRS as an objective clinical tool for measuring infant speech detection and discrimination ability; the authors highlight the further optimizations of test procedures and analysis techniques that would be required to improve accuracy and reliability to levels needed for clinical decision-making.
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spelling pubmed-86715432021-12-16 Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy Mao, Darren Wunderlich, Julia Savkovic, Borislav Jeffreys, Emily Nicholls, Namita Lee, Onn Wah Eager, Michael McKay, Colette M. Sci Rep Article Speech detection and discrimination ability are important measures of hearing ability that may inform crucial audiological intervention decisions for individuals with a hearing impairment. However, behavioral assessment of speech discrimination can be difficult and inaccurate in infants, prompting the need for an objective measure of speech detection and discrimination ability. In this study, the authors used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as the objective measure. Twenty-three infants, 2 to 10 months of age participated, all of whom had passed newborn hearing screening or diagnostic audiology testing. They were presented with speech tokens at a comfortable listening level in a natural sleep state using a habituation/dishabituation paradigm. The authors hypothesized that fNIRS responses to speech token detection as well as speech token contrast discrimination could be measured in individual infants. The authors found significant fNIRS responses to speech detection in 87% of tested infants (false positive rate 0%), as well as to speech discrimination in 35% of tested infants (false positive rate 9%). The results show initial promise for the use of fNIRS as an objective clinical tool for measuring infant speech detection and discrimination ability; the authors highlight the further optimizations of test procedures and analysis techniques that would be required to improve accuracy and reliability to levels needed for clinical decision-making. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8671543/ /pubmed/34907273 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03595-z Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Mao, Darren
Wunderlich, Julia
Savkovic, Borislav
Jeffreys, Emily
Nicholls, Namita
Lee, Onn Wah
Eager, Michael
McKay, Colette M.
Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
title Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
title_full Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
title_fullStr Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
title_full_unstemmed Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
title_short Speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
title_sort speech token detection and discrimination in individual infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8671543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34907273
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03595-z
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