Development and Verification of Auditory Training Tool for Children

Lee, Jae In; Bahng, Junghwa; Lee, Jae Hee

doi:2017.13.2.123

Audiology and Speech Research > Volume 13(2); 2017 > Article

Research Paper

Audiology and Speech Research 2017;13(2): 123-132.
Published online: April 30, 2017.
doi: http://doi.org/10.21848/asr.2017.13.2.123

아동용 청능훈련 도구의 개발 및 검증

이재인^1,2, 방정화², 이재희²

¹한림대학교 성심병원 이비인후과
²한림국제대학원대학교 청각학과

Development and Verification of Auditory Training Tool for Children

Jae In Lee^1,2, Junghwa Bahng², Jae Hee Lee²

¹Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Hallym University College of Medicine, Anyang, Korea
²Department of Audiology, Hallym University of Graduate Studies, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence

Jae Hee Lee ,Tel: +82-2-2051-4952, Fax: +82-2-3451-6618, Email: leejaehee@hallym.ac.kr

Received: February 9, 2017; Revised: March 23, 2017 Accepted: March 24, 2017. Published online: April 30, 2017.

ABSTRACT

Purpose:
Despite various options of auditory training materials for hearing-impaired adults, auditory training tool has been relatively limited for hearing-impaired children. Given that closed-set auditory training would adjust the level of difficulty easier, the purpose of this study was to develop multiple-choice sentences as a closed-set auditory training material for hearing-impaired children.
Method:
The sentences were recorded by a professional female speaker, and the keywords in each recorded sentence were cut and re-synthesized. Using the keywords, we constructed six sentence lists (list 1 for practice, list 2-6 for training). Each sentence included 2-4 keywords such as name, adjective, object, numeral, and verb. In total, 1,616 sentences were generated from any possible combination of words. Pictures matching the key words in sentence were also made by a professional illustrator. As a final step, 25 preschool children with normal hearing participated in determining the difficulty level of training material at 0, 3, 6 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions.
Results:
Results showed that the multiple-choice sentences developed in this study were identified with the mean accuracy greater than 96% for list 1-5, regardless of noise conditions. However, the mean sentence recognition score of list 6 was 34-44% for the conditions of 0, 3, 6 dB SNRs. The sentence recognition score of list 6 was not related to the age of children.
Conclusion:
The developed multiple-choice sentences could be used as the auditory-training material for children. Continued research is necessary to determine the clinical feasibility of this auditory training tool for preschool hearing-impaired children.

Key Words: Auditory training tool for children, Auditory rehabilitation, Hearing-impaired children.