A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia
Despite normal hearing in one ear, individuals with congenital unilateral aural atresia may perceive difficulties in everyday listening conditions typically containing multiple sound sources. While previous work shows that intervention with bone conduction devices may aid spatial hearing for some ch...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2023-08-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Pediatrics |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2023.1194966/full |
| _version_ | 1797749065803366400 |
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| author | Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren Cecilia Engmér Berglin Cecilia Engmér Berglin Malou Hultcrantz Filip Asp Filip Asp |
| author_facet | Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren Cecilia Engmér Berglin Cecilia Engmér Berglin Malou Hultcrantz Filip Asp Filip Asp |
| author_sort | Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite normal hearing in one ear, individuals with congenital unilateral aural atresia may perceive difficulties in everyday listening conditions typically containing multiple sound sources. While previous work shows that intervention with bone conduction devices may aid spatial hearing for some children, testing conditions are often arranged to maximize any benefit and are not very similar to daily life. The benefit from amplification on spatial tasks has been found to vary between individuals, for reasons not entirely clear. This study has sought to expand on the limited knowledge on how children with unilateral aural atresia recognize speech masked by competing speech, and how horizontal sound localization accuracy is affected by the degree of unilateral hearing loss and by amplification using unilateral bone conduction devices when fitted before 3 years of age. In a within-subject, repeated measures design, including 11 children (mean age = 7.9 years), bone conduction hearing device (BCD) amplification did not negatively affect horizontal sound localization accuracy. The effect on speech recognition scores showed greater inter-individual variability. No benefit from amplification on a group level was found. There was no association between age at fitting and the benefit of the BCD. For children with poor unaided sound localization accuracy, there was a greater BCD benefit. Unaided localization accuracy increased as a function of decreasing hearing thresholds in the atretic ear. While it is possible that low sound levels in the atretic ear provided access to interaural localization cues for the children with the lowest hearing thresholds, the association has to be further investigated in a larger sample of children. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:14:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-765554485d8c4244857a22669eac3ddc |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-2360 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:14:30Z |
| publishDate | 2023-08-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Pediatrics |
| spelling | doaj.art-765554485d8c4244857a22669eac3ddc2023-08-09T07:44:30ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Pediatrics2296-23602023-08-011110.3389/fped.2023.11949661194966A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresiaHanna Josefsson Dahlgren0Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren1Cecilia Engmér Berglin2Cecilia Engmér Berglin3Malou Hultcrantz4Filip Asp5Filip Asp6Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Otorhinolaryngology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Otorhinolaryngology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Otorhinolaryngology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Otorhinolaryngology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, SwedenDespite normal hearing in one ear, individuals with congenital unilateral aural atresia may perceive difficulties in everyday listening conditions typically containing multiple sound sources. While previous work shows that intervention with bone conduction devices may aid spatial hearing for some children, testing conditions are often arranged to maximize any benefit and are not very similar to daily life. The benefit from amplification on spatial tasks has been found to vary between individuals, for reasons not entirely clear. This study has sought to expand on the limited knowledge on how children with unilateral aural atresia recognize speech masked by competing speech, and how horizontal sound localization accuracy is affected by the degree of unilateral hearing loss and by amplification using unilateral bone conduction devices when fitted before 3 years of age. In a within-subject, repeated measures design, including 11 children (mean age = 7.9 years), bone conduction hearing device (BCD) amplification did not negatively affect horizontal sound localization accuracy. The effect on speech recognition scores showed greater inter-individual variability. No benefit from amplification on a group level was found. There was no association between age at fitting and the benefit of the BCD. For children with poor unaided sound localization accuracy, there was a greater BCD benefit. Unaided localization accuracy increased as a function of decreasing hearing thresholds in the atretic ear. While it is possible that low sound levels in the atretic ear provided access to interaural localization cues for the children with the lowest hearing thresholds, the association has to be further investigated in a larger sample of children.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2023.1194966/fullunilateral aural atresiaunilateral conductive hearing lossUCHLsound localizationspeech recognitionBCD |
| spellingShingle | Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren Hanna Josefsson Dahlgren Cecilia Engmér Berglin Cecilia Engmér Berglin Malou Hultcrantz Filip Asp Filip Asp A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia Frontiers in Pediatrics unilateral aural atresia unilateral conductive hearing loss UCHL sound localization speech recognition BCD |
| title | A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia |
| title_full | A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia |
| title_fullStr | A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia |
| title_full_unstemmed | A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia |
| title_short | A pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia |
| title_sort | pilot study on spatial hearing in children with congenital unilateral aural atresia |
| topic | unilateral aural atresia unilateral conductive hearing loss UCHL sound localization speech recognition BCD |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2023.1194966/full |
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