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Effects of reinforcer duration on the response behavior of preterm 2-year-olds in visual reinforcement audiometry
1Department of Communicative Disorders, Utah State University, Logan.
Insights
Shorter visual reinforcement duration in visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) led to increased responses and slower habituation in young children. This suggests optimizing VRA protocols for better audiological information.
Area of Science:
- Audiology
- Pediatric audiology
- Behavioral audiology
Background:
- Visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) is a common method for assessing hearing in infants and young children.
- Optimizing VRA protocols is crucial for obtaining reliable audiological data in pediatric populations.
- Reinforcer duration is a key variable that may influence response behavior during VRA.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of varying visual reinforcer durations on response behavior in pediatric VRA.
- To determine if shorter or longer reinforcer durations yield better audiological outcomes.
- To explore the effect of reinforcer duration on habituation rates in young children undergoing VRA.
Main Methods:
- Sixty preterm children aged 24-30 months corrected age participated.
- A 50-dB HL complex noise bandpass signal was used as the auditory stimulus.
- Three visual reinforcer durations (0.5, 1.5, and 4.0 seconds) were tested.
Main Results:
- Decreasing visual reinforcer duration led to an increase in the number of responses.
- Children receiving shorter (0.5 sec) reinforcer durations exhibited significantly slower habituation rates compared to those receiving longer (4.0 sec) durations.
- Shorter reinforcer durations appear to maintain engagement and responsiveness for longer periods.
Conclusions:
- Reducing visual reinforcer duration in VRA can enhance response rates and reduce habituation in pediatric subjects.
- Audiologists can potentially gather more comprehensive audiological information from older children within the VRA age range by shortening reinforcer duration.
- This finding has practical implications for refining VRA techniques to improve efficiency and data acquisition in pediatric hearing assessments.
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of reinforcer duration (0.5, 1.5, and 4.0 sec) on response behavior to a 50-dB HL complex noise bandpass signal in visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA). Sixty preterm 2-year-olds (corrected age 24-30 mo) met the selection criteria and were used as subjects. Data indicated that decreasing the duration of a subject's exposure to the visual reinforcer resulted in more responses, with significantly slower habituation rates presented by subjects receiving brief (0.5 sec) versus long (4.0 sec) reinforcer duration. These results suggest that audiologists may increase the amount of audiometric information obtained from children in the upper age bracket of VRA by decreasing their exposure to the visual reinforcer.