Transcript Karen Iler Kirk • PhD, Hearing Science, The University of Iowa – Speech perception & cochlear implants • Professor, Dept.

Karen Iler Kirk
•
PhD, Hearing Science, The
University of Iowa
– Speech perception & cochlear
implants
•
Professor, Dept. of Speech,
Language and Hearing Sciences
•
Adjunct Professor, Dept. of
Otolaryngology – Head and Neck
Surgery, Indiana University School
of Medicine (IUSM)
•
Funding from NIH
•
[email protected]
Current Research Areas
Collaborative Research: IUSM / Purdue (funded by NIH-NIDCD)
• Cochlear Implant (CI) Outcomes
– Neural plasticity & sensory aid benefit
• Effects of early auditory and
linguistic experience
– Combined acoustic and electric hearing
– CI outcomes in children with
multiple handicapping conditions
• Spoken Word Recognition (SWR) in
Listeners with Hearing Loss
– Lexical and indexical effects on SWR
– Multimodal SWR
– Development of pediatric auditory-only tests of SWR
• Theoretically motivated by current models of spoken word recognition
Methodologies
CI Outcomes Research
• Longitudinal assessments of auditory, speech and language
abilities in children with prelingual deafness
– Data are analyzed as a function of
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Type of sensory aid (hearing aid vs. cochlear implant)
Age at implantation (1st, 2nd, or 3rd year of life)
Communication method (spoken vs. signed and spoken English)
Degree of hearing loss
Studies of Spoken Word Recognition
• Cross-sectional assessments of SWR in listeners with normal
hearing and with hearing loss
– Data are analyzed as a function of
• Stimulus characteristics (stimulus variability, lexical difficulty)
• Listener characteristics (age, hearing status)
• Test environment (quiet vs. competing noise)
Recent Results
CI Outcomes Research
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Early implantation (<2 years) and early exposure to spoken language
– Enhance spoken word recognition
– Minimize language delays
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For children with some residual hearing in the non-implanted ear, the
combined use of a CI and a hearing aid on opposite ears yields better
SWR than either sensory aid alone, especially in noise
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Pediatric CI users with mild cognitive delays demonstrate similar speech
perception skills, but delayed language skills, when compared to their
typically developing deaf peers with CIs
Studies of Spoken Word Recognition
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Despite receiving a degraded auditory signal, children with CIs
– Organize and access words from lexical memory in a manner similar to listeners
with normal hearing
– Are sensitive to talker characteristics in the speech signal
Future Directions
Translational Research
• Multidisciplinary effort to develop audiovisual tests of spoken
word and sentence recognition
– Proposed test features
• Lexically-controlled stimulus items
• “Perceptually robust” to reflect real-world listening demands (multiple
talkers, speaking rates, etc.)
• Three presentation formats – Auditory only, Visual only and A + V
• Adult and pediatric versions
• Multi-site cross-sectional studies to:
– Validate the new test
– Collect normative data from adults and children with hearing loss
• Data analyzed by
– Age
– Degree of hearing loss
– Type of sensory aid