Speech Perception Assessment and Training System

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will develop a multimedia speech perception assessment and training system designed to improve the speech perception skills of adult hearing-aid users. It is estimated that one in three adults will eventually suffer hearing loss. As the population of the US ages, more and more people will be affected. The key assumption underlying the development of the system is that carefully structured auditory training can improve the speech perception abilities of people who have been fitted with and grown accustomed to using hearing aids. In phase I a training study will be conducted in which five participants will be assessed for their ability to identify English consonants using only acoustic cues. Participants will then undergo intensive training to improve their perception skills on eight of the consonants shown to be difficult. A posttraining assessment will be conducted to evaluate the success of the training method. If the Phase I study shows that auditory training can indeed improve speech perceptions skills for this population, these methods along with methods for training designed to optimize the use of the linguistic and pragmatic redundancy inherent in real-world communication will be incorporated into the Phase II training system.