Improved Speech Recognition for Children With Limited Usable Hearing Unilaterally When Using a Remote Microphone in a...

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Educational Acoustics

Background:

• Children with limited usable hearing unilaterally (LUHU) face significant challenges in noisy and reverberant classrooms.
• Difficulty understanding speech at a distance impacts academic performance and classroom engagement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the effectiveness of a remote microphone system (Phonak Roger Focus II and Touchscreen Mic) for children with LUHU.
• To evaluate the impact of distance and noise on speech recognition in a simulated classroom.

Main Methods:

• Sixteen children with LUHU and 10 with normal hearing (NH) participated.
• Participants repeated AzBio sentences with and without the Roger Focus II system in quiet and noisy simulated classroom environments at varying distances.
• Speech and noise levels were controlled to simulate realistic classroom acoustics.

Main Results:

• The Roger Focus II significantly improved speech recognition for children with LUHU across most conditions.
• The largest performance gains were observed in noisy environments at greater distances.
• Children with LUHU using the system outperformed NH children in challenging noisy conditions at all tested distances.

Conclusions:

• The Roger Focus II effectively mitigates background noise and distance effects for children with LUHU.
• Children with LUHU demonstrated enhanced speech recognition, even outperforming NH peers in difficult listening scenarios.
• Further research should explore real-world classroom feedback and dynamic listening conditions.