Non Speech Sound Discrimination In Subjects With Impaired Hearing PDF Download

The purpose of this study was to determine whether one ear of a profoundly deaf student could duplicate a response rate similar to the response rate achieved by the opposite ear on an auditory training program. The formal hypothesis of this study was: a student that reaches criterion level of acceptable performance in the right ear on one presentation of Auditory Training Program No. V will achieve the same criterion level of acceptable performance during the first presentation of the last twenty test slides of Auditory Training Program No. V to the left ear. In observation of clinical performance oft hearing impaired patients, it was reported that often the-discrimination score of one ear improves or remains the same after a hearing aid is fitted to that ear for a length of time. At the same time, the contralateral ear, i.e., the ear not fitted with a hearing aid, fails to maintain or improve its ability to respond to speech discrimination tests. Since a review of the literature failed to reveal any existing research explaining this observation, an investigation into this problem appeared warranted. Three subjects were selected for the purpose of this investigation, two males and one female. Each subject was a student in high school at the Oregon State School for the Deaf. Of the three subjects, two were juniors, and one was a senior. All three subjects possessed hearing levels below 110dB (ISO 1964 standards). To evaluate the hypothesis, each subject was first given a pretest trial to determine the discrimination ability of each ear when presented with Auditory Program No. V. Then the right ear of all three subjects was trained to a predetermined criterion level of acceptable performance. For each day that a treatment phase was presented to a subject, the remaining successive subject(s) was/were given the twenty test slide sequence of the auditory training program. A post-test of the left ear followed the training of the right ear, and this was compared to the pretest score achieved by the left ear at the beginning of the treatment period. To support the hypothesis of this study, the left ear would have to demonstrate a response rate comparable to the trained right ear on one presentation of the training program. Results of the study indicate that the left ears of two of the subjects tested, obtained response rates comparable to the response rates achieved by their right ears. However, the results also showed that the left ear on the third subject tested failed to compare with the response rate obtained by his trained right ear. It was suggested that this gave added support to the reported clinical observations, since out, of the three treatment subjects tested, one subject was found who could not respond with the left ear. It was concluded that a more intense investigation of the research problem be considered. Suggestions were also given in regards to improving the multiple-base- line design utilized in this study.