Multilingual self speech audiometry (MuLiSSA).

Disabling hearing loss (DHL) is one of the most prevalent public health issues. WHO estimates that by 2050 one out of every ten people (700 million) will be affected by DHL, putting enormous pressure on global health care systems. Speech audiometry is the core clinical test to diagnose and treat DHL. Currently, speech audiometry can only be performed in a sound booth in the presence of the qualified clinician, an audiologist, to perform the scoring. The condition for correct scoring is that the audiologist is able to understand the language of the speech test material. This project aims at taking speech audiometry out of the booth, into the waiting room and the home environment, at least for people using a modern hearing device with wireless audiostreaming capability. Solution for the multi-language setting is the other important goal of this project. A first project objective is to build remote speech testing capability and demonstrate its feasibility at TRL6 level. The "boothless testing" demonstrator will cover existing speech testing materials in multiple languages. The technology blocks relating to self-testing need to be matured from TRL3 onwards. A closed set testing user interface will be compared to open set testing. Furthermore, the effects of the wireless link technology limitations will be fully characterized in terms of their impact of speech testing outcomes. The frequency and impact of cognitive distractions and background sounds will be considered as well, especially for the home environment. Criteria for the TRL6 self-testing toll gate are good test-retest reliability and correspondence to in-booth testing (r > 0.9). A second objective is to extract more information out of speech audiometry tests. Current tests only provide an average recognition score. We want to introduce more precision, measuring as well which phoneme errors an individual patient is making. This requires the alteration of speech testing materials. Currently test lists are too short and do not cover adequately the phonemes of the language. To develop the concept, the project will start from first principles, theoretical phonetic studies and existing clinical data. As part of the objective the project will explore how clinicians can use this information for optimize device fitting or hearing rehabilitation. We will first pilot this approach in Dutch. Goal is to reach a proof-of-concept (TRL3) maturity. The third objective is to investigate the feasibility of rolling out the precision audiometry concept in many languages. Current speech tests lack comparability across languages, which hampers consolidation of hearing outcomes across multiple language areas. The current speech audiometry test approach requires the clinicians to master the language as they have to score manually the responses given by the patient on the played audiomaterial. The lack of comparability and the requirement for the clinician to master the speech test language are blockers for testing individual patients in their native language.

Keywords:HEARING, MULTILINGUALISM, SPEECH, TESTING

Disciplines:Audiology, Speech and language therapy

Project type:Collaboration project