Evaluating a smartphone digits-in-noise test as part of the audiometric test battery

South African Journal of Communication Disorders

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Evaluating a smartphone digits-in-noise test as part of the audiometric test battery
 
Creator Potgieter, Jenni-Mari Swanepoel, De Wet Smits, Cas
 
Subject audiology; diagnostic digits-in-noise; speech-in-noise; hearing test; hearing loss; smartphone; hearing screening; diagnostic; audiometry
Description Background: Speech-in-noise tests have become a valuable part of the audiometric test battery providing an indication of a listener’s ability to function in background noise. A simple digits-in-noise (DIN) test could be valuable to support diagnostic hearing assessments, hearing aid fittings and counselling for both paediatric and adult populations. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the South African English smartphone DIN test’s performance as part of the audiometric test battery. Design: This descriptive study evaluated 109 adult subjects (43 male and 66 female subjects) with and without sensorineural hearing loss by comparing pure-tone air conduction thresholds, speech recognition monaural performance scores (SRS dB) and the DIN speech reception threshold (SRT). An additional nine adult hearing aid users (four male and five female subjects) were included in a subset to determine aided and unaided DIN SRTs. Results: The DIN SRT is strongly associated with the best ear 4 frequency pure-tone average (4FPTA) (rs = 0.81) and maximum SRS dB (r = 0.72). The DIN test had high sensitivity and specificity to identify abnormal pure-tone (0.88 and 0.88, respectively) and SRS dB (0.76 and 0.88, respectively) results. There was a mean signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvement in the aided condition that demonstrated an overall benefit of 0.84 SNR dB. Conclusion: The DIN SRT was significantly correlated with the best ear 4FPTA and maximum SRS dB. The DIN SRT provides a useful measure of speech recognition in noise that can evaluate hearing aid fittings, manage counselling and hearing expectations.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor This research was funded by the National Research Foundation under the grant number 88803.
Date 2018-05-21
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Descriptive research study
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajcd.v65i1.574
 
Source South African Journal of Communication Disorders; Vol 65, No 1 (2018); 6 pages 2225-4765 0379-8046
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/574/808 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/574/807 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/574/809 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/574/804
 
Coverage — — normal-hearing; sensorineural hearing loss; hearing aid user
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Jenni-Mari Potgieter, De Wet Swanepoel, Cas Smits https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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