AUDITORY-VISUAL INTEGRATION AND AGE

描述(由申请人提供)：此申请直接响应了美国复苏和再投资法案的目标，即加快科学研究的节奏，并通过改善临床护理和创造就业机会来投资于经济影响。在面对面的环境中理解口语的能力是人类交流不可或缺的一部分，但这种能力似乎随着年龄的增长而减弱。令人惊讶的是，很少有测试可以可靠地评估成年人基于听觉刺激的口语理解能力，也没有测试来评估基于视听刺激的理解能力。现有的为数不多的听力口语理解测试只包括一种或两种形式，因此不适合纵向跟踪表现。为了实现家长资助中的三个具体目标，包括在18个月的时间间隔内评估老年人的话语理解能力，我们开发了视听测试、讲座、访谈和口语叙述(LISN)测试。这项测试由八种形式组成，每种形式包括六个口语段落。在听完并看到说话者说出每一篇文章后，考生回答六个理解问题。在这个补充项目中，新雇用的工作人员将进行必要的测试，以确定八种LISS表格的可靠性和有效性，包括纯听觉呈现条件和视听呈现条件。参与者将包括100名付费志愿者，其中50人年龄在20-30岁之间，50人年龄在70-80岁之间。基于个别段落和问题的数据，我们将重新组合这些段落(并在适当的时候修改问题)，以创建八种等同的形式，每种形式六段，并创建多个简短的临床版本的测试。这项研究不仅有助于解释家长拨款的结果，而且还将产生一种重要的研究和临床测量工具，一种口语理解测试，到目前为止，听力学家和研究人员可用的测试手段中没有这种测试。 公共卫生相关性：在家长的资助下，我们正在进行系统的调查，研究年龄如何影响视听整合和口语理解，以及表现如何随听力和视觉敏锐度的变化而变化。在拟议的项目中，我们将确定我们新开发的口语理解测试的替代形式的可靠性和有效性，这项测试是父母拨款的核心评估工具，很可能成为听觉学家和研究人员与老年人合作的重要临床工具。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is directly responsive to the goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which are to accelerate the tempo of scientific research and to invest in economic impact through improved clinical care and job creation. The ability to comprehend spoken language in a face-to-face setting is an integral part of human communication, but this ability appears to diminish with age. Surprisingly, there are very few tests that reliably assess adult comprehension of spoken language based on auditory stimuli, and no tests for assessing comprehension based on audiovisual stimuli. The few existing auditory spoken language comprehension tests include only one or two forms, and so are not appropriate for tracking performance longitudinally. In order to achieve three of the Specific Aims in the parent grant, including one that involves assessing older person's discourse comprehension over an 18-month time interval, we developed the audiovisual test, Lectures, Interviews, and Spoken Narratives (LISN) Test. This test consists of eight forms, each consisting of six spoken passages. After hearing and seeing a talker speak each passage, test-takers answer six comprehension questions. In this Supplement project, newly hired staff will conduct the necessary tests to establish the reliability and validity of the eight LISN forms, for both an auditory-only presentation condition and an audiovisual presentation condition. Participants will include 100 paid volunteers, 50 of whom are between the ages of 20-30 yrs and 50 of whom are between the ages of 70-80 yrs. Based on the data for the individual passages and questions, we will recombine the passages (and revise questions when appropriate) to create eight equivalent forms of six passages each and to create multiple shortened, clinical versions of the test. This research will not only facilitate interpretation of the findings from the parent grant, but will also result in an important research and clinical measurement instrument, a spoken language comprehension test that has here-to-fore been missing from the arsenal of tests available to audiologists and researchers. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Under the parent grant, we are conducting the systematic investigation of how aging affects audiovisual integration and spoken language comprehension, and how performance varies with hearing and visual acuity. In the proposed project, we will establish the reliability and validity of alternative forms of our newly developed test of spoken language comprehension, a test that is the centerpiece assessment instrument for the parent grant and that may well become an important clinical tool for audiologists and researchers who work with older adults.