Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Listening Effort in Young Children with Cochlear Implants

Audiology Research

Eva Orzan¹  Amanda Saksida¹  Stefano Bembich¹  Sara Giannantonio²  Alessandro Scorpecci²  Pasquale Marsella²  Alessandra Resca²  Sara Ghiselli³ 

[1] Institute for Maternal and Child Health—IRCCS “Burlo Garofolo”, 34100 Trieste, Italy;Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù, 00165 Roma, Italy;“Guglielmo da Saliceto” Hospital of Piacenza, 29121 Piacenza, Italy;

关键词: listening effort;    listening fatigue;    young children with cochlear implants;    EEG;    fNIRS;    pupillometry;   

DOI  :  10.3390/audiolres12010001

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Very early bilateral implantation is thought to significantly reduce the attentional effort required to acquire spoken language, and consequently offer a profound improvement in quality of life. Despite the early intervention, however, auditory and communicative outcomes in children with cochlear implants remain poorer than in hearing children. The distorted auditory input via the cochlear implants requires more auditory attention resulting in increased listening effort and fatigue. Listening effort and fatigue may critically affect attention to speech, and in turn language processing, which may help to explain the variation in language and communication abilities. However, measuring attention to speech and listening effort is demanding in infants and very young children. Three objective techniques for measuring listening effort are presented in this paper that may address the challenges of testing very young and/or uncooperative children with cochlear implants: pupillometry, electroencephalography, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. We review the studies of listening effort that used these techniques in paediatric populations with hearing loss, and discuss potential benefits of the systematic evaluation of listening effort in these populations.

【 授权许可】

Unknown