Vocal biomarkers of mild-to-moderate hearing loss in children and adults: Voiceless sibilants

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if an Spectral COG for /ʃ/ was unaffected by hearing loss in objective measure of speech production could serve as a both listening conditions, whereas the spectral COG for vocal biomarker for the effects of high-frequency hearing /s/ significantly decreased as high-frequency hearing loss loss on speech perception. It was hypothesized that increased. The distance in spectral COG between /s/ and /ʃ/ production of voiceless sibilants is governed sufficiently decreased significantly with increasing hearing level. COG by auditory feedback that high-frequency hearing loss distance significantly predicted nonsense-word detection results in subtle but significant shifts in the spectral in children but not in adults. characteristics of these sibilants. Conclusions: At least one aspect of speech production Method: Sibilant production was examined in individuals (voiceless sibilants) is measurably affected by high-frequency with mild to moderately severe congenital (22 children; hearing loss and is related to speech perception 8–17 years old) and acquired (23 adults; 55–80 years old) in children. Speech production did not predict speech hearing losses. Measures of hearing level (pure-tone perception in adults, suggesting a more complex average thresholds at 4 and 8 kHz), speech perception relationship between auditory feedback and feedforward (detection of nonsense words within sentences), and mechanisms with age. Even so, these results suggest speech production (spectral center of gravity [COG] for /s/ that this vocal biomarker may be useful for identifying the and /ʃ/) were obtained in unaided and aided conditions. presence of high-frequency hearing loss in adults and Results: For both children and adults, detection of nonsense children and for predicting the impact of hearing loss in words increased significantly as hearing thresholds improved. children.