Speech Pathology and Audiology Commons^™

Cvemp Frequency Tuning In Adults Aged 60 And Above: A Systematic Review, Kiersten P. Dudman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objective: This systematic review aims to evaluate if there is a significant difference in the frequency specificity of cVEMP amplitude responses in the older adult population, and if so how clinical protocols should reflect age related changes in the vestibular system to properly assess for vestibular pathology.

Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted using various databases through the Mina Rees Library of the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. This search identified articles relevant to this systematic review. Inclusion criteria encompassed quantified studies that utilized various frequency tone bursts to elicit VEMP responses among several age groups.

Results: Three …

Factors Related To Hearing Aid Use Among Older Adults From Hispanic/Latino Backgrounds: Findings From The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study Of Latinos, Michelle L. Arnold

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to understand perceived hearing loss and hearing health care use among older adults from Hispanic/Latino backgrounds using the Andersen model of health care utilization as a framework. A cross sectional analysis of audiometric and survey data from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos was used to estimate factors that characterize perceived hearing handicap and hearing aid use, and to determine hearing aid use rates in a large group of older Hispanic/Latino adults. Data came from 6970 adults aged 45 to 76. Results revealed that self-perceived hearing handicap is significantly correlated to measured hearing …

Assessment For Mild Cognitive Impairment: Striving For Best Practice, Julie Leigh Dalmasso

Dissertations

This dissertation is a series of three studies aimed at determining the best assessment practices for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) that can employed by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The first study was non-experimental and descriptive examining whether three commonly used assessment instruments yielded similar categorical results. The data were analyzed to determine whether the Eight-Item Interview to Differentiate Aging and Dementia (AD8), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and the Cognitive-Linguistic Quick Test (CLQT) identified the same participants from a neurotypical sample as having cognitive deficits. Very little agreement was found amongst the three tools.

Study two was modified to include two …

Wideband Acoustic Immittance And Dpoae Changes In Older Adults, Mandy M. Williams

Dissertations, 2014-2019

This study examined the effect of middle ear aging in adults using wideband acoustic immittance (WAI) measures. WAI and traditional 226 Hz tympanometry were measured in 25 young adult ears (ages 18-25) and 26 older adult ears (ages 50-71) with normal middle ear status. While minimal differences between older and younger adults were observed with 226 Hz tympanometry, significant age effects were seen with WAI measures. The older adults demonstrated a statistically significant increase in middle ear absorbance at lower frequencies (226-1,260 Hz) and decreased absorbance at higher frequencies (4,000-5,040 Hz) compared to the younger adult group. While the effect …

Binaural Listening In Young And Middle-Aged Adults: Interaural Phase Differences And Speech-In-Noise Measures, Caitlin Cotter

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Difficulty understanding speech in the presence of noise is a common complaint of middle-aged and older adults with and without hearing loss. There is an incomplete picture of what contributes to difficulties understanding speech-in-noise in adults who have normal audiograms. As humans we listen binaurally, so declines in binaural processing may contribute to speech-in-noise difficulties. We examined the effects of age on the upper frequency limit of interaural phase difference (IPD) detection and IPD detection at fixed frequencies. We also examined a speech-in-noise measure of spatial separation across young and middle-aged, normal-hearing individuals.

Participants were young (n=12) and middle-aged (n=8) …

The Effects Of Aging On Auditory Duration Discrimination, Rachael N. Luckett

Honors Theses

The goal of this study is to identify how auditory duration discrimination ability varies across age groups by using an unbiased stimulus such as a music tone. This will be accomplished by conducting a quantitative study testing duration discrimination skills in young and elderly adults. Their confidence ratings per response will also be included along with their discrimination results. The author will generate data that compare the duration discrimination abilities of young versus elderly adults. The null hypothesis is that there is no difference in duration discrimination between elderly and young adults.

Effects Of Aging And Spectral Shaping On The Sub-Cortical (Brainstem) Differentiation Of Contrastive Stop Consonants, Dania A. Rishiq

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Purpose: The objectives of this dissertation are to: (1) evaluate the influence of aging on the sub-cortical (brainstem) differentiation of voiced stop consonants (i.e. /b-d-g/); (2) determine whether potential aging deficits at the brainstem level influence behavioral identification of the /b-d-g/ stimuli, (3) investigate whether spectral shaping diminishes any aging impairments at the brainstem level; and (4) if so, whether minimizing these deficits improves the behavioral identification of the speech stimuli.

Subjects: Behavioral and electrophysiological responses were collected from 11 older adults (> 50 years old) with near-normal to normal hearing and were compared to those of 16 normal-hearing younger …

Age-Related Changes To The Production Of Linguistic Prosody, Daniel Richard Barnes

Open Access Theses

The production of speech prosody (the rhythm, pausing, and intonation associated with natural speech) is critical to effective communication. The current study investigated the impact of age-related changes to physiology and cognition in relation to the production of two types of linguistic prosody: lexical stress and the disambiguation of syntactically ambiguous utterances. Analyses of the acoustic correlates of stress: speech intensity (or sound-pressure level; SPL), fundamental frequency (F0), key word/phrase duration, and pause duration revealed that both young and older adults effectively use these acoustic features to signal linguistic prosody, although the relative weighting of cues differed by group. Differences …

Age-Related Changes In Listening Effort For Various Types Of Masker Noises, Jamie L. Desjardins

Communication Sciences and Disorders - Dissertations

It is well established that older listeners have more difficulty understanding speech in background noise than younger listeners (e.g. Dubno et. al., 1984). Some have attributed this increased difficulty to peripheral hearing loss, while others suggest that older listeners may perceive listening in noise as difficult and effortful because it requires them to exert more cognitive resources (Desjardins et. al., 2009). The purpose of the present study was to directly evaluate the relationship between cognitive function, listening effort and speech recognition for a group of younger and older normal hearing adults, and a group of older adults with hearing impairment, …

A Protocol For Sound Localization Testing With Young And Aging Normal Hearing Subjects, Alison V. Huff

Doctoral Dissertations

An important aspect of processing auditory stimulus is the ability to localize the source of a sound within the environment. Localization has been defined as the ability to determine the direction of sound (Tonning, 1975; Cranford, Boose, & Moore, 1990; Middlebrooks & Green, 1991; Cranford Andres, Piatz, & Reissig, 1993; Lorenzi Gatehouse, & Lever, 1999; Abel, Giguere, Consoli, & Papsin, 2000). Previous researchers have used a variety of test stimuli, test environments, loudspeaker arrays, and ages and numbers of subjects to measure the ability to localize sounds. Despite the obvious need for individuals to identify the specific location of a …