Speech-recognition-in-noise performance of prelingually-deafened mandarin-speaking children with bilaterally fitted hearing aids, and those with bimodally fitted cochlear implants and hearing aids in contralateral ears

This study investigated the binaural benefits and spatial release from masking of group and intra-participant comparisons in Mandarin Chinese-speaking preschool children with binaural hearing aids and bimodal fitting cochlear implants, and explored the relationship between hearing audibility and speech-recognition-in-noise performance. Participants (2.9-7.5 years) were tested using the Mandarin Spoken Word-Picture IDentification Test (Adaptive version) to yield the adaptive signal-to-noise ratio for a 50% correct score as the outcome measure. The speech stimuli were presented from the 0° azimuth, and the noise was presented from the 0, +90, and −90° azimuths. Furthermore, the participants were tested under monaural- and binaural-aided hearing conditions. The participants with a binaural-fitted hearing aid significantly benefited from binaural redundancy, head-shadow and achieved a significant spatial release from masking with a monaural left hearing aid when the noise moved from the front to the right. In contrast, the participants with a bimodal-fitted hearing aid significantly benefited from binaural redundancy, binaural squelch, and head-shadow and achieved a significant spatial release from masking with a monaural cochlear implant and a bimodal-fitted hearing aid when the noise moved from the front to the hearing-aid side. Although the speech intelligibility index obtained from the monaural hearing aids could predict the speech-recognition-in-noise performance of the participants with the monaural-fitted hearing aid, the same obtained from the monaural cochlear implants could not predict the speech-recognition-in-noise performance of the participants with the monaural-fitted cochlear implant. The Mandarin Spoken Word-Picture IDentification Test (Adaptive version) is a powerful and efficient tool for assessing the speech-recognition-in-noise performance of children in clinical settings and binaural-aided hearing is important for obtaining binaural and spatial benefits that could maximise the potential speech-recognition-in-noise performance of children with bilateral hearing loss. All rights reserved.