Spatial Hearing in Children with Normal Hearing and Bilateral Cochlear Implants

这项研究的总体目标是了解儿童在复杂的听觉环境中是如何听力的。 空间听觉，在背景噪声中理解语音和抑制干扰的能力 来自回声(优先效应；PE)的研究将在听力正常的儿童和听力正常的聋儿中进行 接受双侧人工耳蜗术(BI-CI)。目标1是研究空间的成熟进程。 在复杂的声学环境中的听力，以及噪音和回声对这些 超能力。我们将检验这一假设，即空间听力技能在生活的早期阶段在简单的 条件，但不是在复杂的、具有挑战性的条件下，例如当竞争信号、回声或噪声时 都在现场。目标2是研究听力正常的多源环境下的语音清晰度 孩子们。由于目标和干扰源的空间分离而导致的掩蔽减少(从空间释放 掩蔽；SRM)将是这项工作的重点。我们将测试关于中央成熟的假设- 儿童时期调节的听觉能力。目标1和目标2的研究也将提供重要的基准。 为了了解双边利益对听力损失儿童的重要性，特别是对 接受双侧人工耳蜗术(BI-CI)的儿童人数不断增加。在目标3中，使用来自目标的措施 1和2，BI-CI的益处将在不同的儿童组中进行研究，这些儿童的听觉体验不同 在他们的第二个植入物激活之前和之后。据推测，同时患有这种疾病的儿童 与顺序BI-CI的儿童相比，BI-CI将更快地产生双边利益； 这种差异将在两年的双边经验后显著缩小；患有后遗症的儿童 由于早期建立语言失聪，语言失聪的表现将好于语前失聪的人 双耳电路。拟议的工作将帮助我们更好地了解以下功能的开发 在日常情况下很重要。这里开发的措施最终可以在临床上实施。 放大和匹配策略的评估。BI-CI研究的结果将提供定量的 儿童双边受益的措施，并将对听觉可塑性和 在年轻人群中的经历。

The overall goal of this research is to understand how children hear in complex auditory environments. Spatial hearing, the ability to understanding speech in background noise and suppression of interference from echoes (precedence effect; PE) will be studied in children with normal hearing and in deaf children who received bilateral cochlear implants (BI-CIs). Aim 1 is to investigate the maturational progression of spatial hearing in complex acoustic environments, and the degradation that noise and echoes have on these abilities. We will test the hypothesis that spatial hearing skills are well developed early in life under simple conditions but not under complex, challenging conditions, such as when competing signals, echoes or noise are present. Aim 2 is to investigate Speech intelligibility in a multi-source environment in normal-hearing children. The decrease in masking due to spatial separation of the target and interferers (spatial release from masking; SRM) will be the focus of this work. We will test hypotheses regarding the maturation of centrally- mediated auditory abilities during childhood. Studies in Aims 1 and 2 will also provide important benchmarks for understanding the significance of bilateral benefits in children with hearing loss, and in particular for a growing population of children with bilateral cochlear implants (BI-CIs). In Aim 3, using measures from Aims 1 and 2, benefits of BI-CIs will be studied in groups of children that vary according to auditory experience prior to, and following, activation of their second implant. It is hypothesized that children with simultaneous BI-CIs will be on a quicker trajectory for emergence of bilateral benefits than children with sequential BI-CIs; that differences will be significantly diminished after 2 years of bilateral experience; that children with post- lingual deafness will perform better than those with pre-lingual deafness due to early establishment of binaural circuitry. The proposed work will help us to better understand the development of functions that are important in everyday situations. The measures developed here can be eventually implemented in clinical evaluations of amplification and fitting strategies. Findings from the BI-CI studies will provide quantitative measures of bilateral benefit in children and will be enlightening about the role of auditory plasticity and experience in a young human population.