Effect of Competition, Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Race, and Sex on Southern American English Dialect Talkers' Sentence Recognition.

BACKGROUND: Although numerous studies have examined regional and racial-ethnic labeling of talker identity, few have evaluated speech perception skills of listeners from the southern United States. PURPOSE: The objective of the study was to examine the effect of competition, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), race, and sex on sentence recognition performance in talkers from the Southern American English dialect region. RESEARCH DESIGN: A four-factor mixed-measures design was used. STUDY SAMPLE: Forty-eight normal-hearing young African American and White adults participated. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSES: The Perceptually Robust English Sentence Test Open-set was used in quiet and in continuous and interrupted noise and multitalker babble at SNRs of -10, -5, 0, and 5 dB. RESULTS: Significant main effects of competition (p < 0.001) and SNR (p < 0.001) and a competition by SNR interaction were found (p < 0.001). Performance improved with increasing SNRs. Performance was also greater in the interrupted broadband noise at poorer SNRs, relative to the other competitors. Multitalker babble performance was significantly poorer than the continuous noise at the poorer SNRs. There was no effect of race or sex on performance in quiet or competition. CONCLUSIONS: Although African American English and White American English talkers living in the same geographic region demonstrate differences in speech production, their speech perception in noise does not appear to differ under the conditions examined in this study.

The emergence and prevalence of hearing loss in children with homozygous sickle cell disease.

OBJECTIVES: Many children with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience the effect of cochlear insult due to hemolytic anemia and vaso-occlusion that accompanies the disease. As a result, hearing sensitivity eventually decreases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the emergence of hearing loss and the prevalence of such in children with homozygous SCD. METHODS: A large pediatric database was utilized to gather audiometric outcomes in children with homozygous SCD. Children were identified by primary diagnosis ICD codes. Demographic and audiometric data was drawn to determine presence, type, degree, and laterality of hearing loss. Hearing loss was defined as an elevated audiometric threshold >15 dB HL for pure tone air conduction audiometry or >20 dB HL minimal response level for sound-field testing. RESULTS: One hundred and twenty-eight children were identified. The prevalence of hearing loss ranged from 28.8% to 50.8% depending on the calculation method (i.e., individual vs. ear specific prevalence and any elevated threshold vs. a three-frequency pure tone average). Conductive hearing loss and bilateral loss were most prevalent. The degree of hearing loss ranged from slight to profound. The mean age of identification of sensorineural hearing loss was 9.6 years. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of hearing loss in children with homozygous SCD is higher than in normal children. Regular hearing assessments of children with SCD is warranted and should be advocated in early infancy and as part of their ongoing care.