Rapid measures of speech-evoked brainstem activity in infants who have hearing loss: assessing hearing aid benefit for speech sounds

由于新生儿听力筛查方法的发展，加拿大各地正在制定计划，以确定婴儿期永久性儿童听力损失并提供早期干预。成功的干预，通常包括使用助听器，有可能支持言语和语言的正常发展。不幸的是，缺乏客观的方法来评估助听器的益处是否合适，特别是那些在婴儿使用助听器的关键前几个月可行的方法。我们最近开发了一种新的系统来评估大脑对语言的反应，具体分析了对8个重要语言线索的反应。我们相信这个新系统可以被修改用于婴儿。我们的计划包括咨询专家临床医生以及协作系统开发和验证研究。一个原型系统将与一个成熟的工业伙伴合作建立。该系统将提供一种新的工具，用于分析哪些经过助听器处理的语音被婴儿的听觉大脑接收。这可能标志着成功干预的重大障碍，并指导临床决策。这将提高临床医生的决策和家长对助听器安装质量的信心。我们希望这项技术能够对婴儿助听器的益处提供敏感和详细的客观评估，这将使早期干预计划能够及早采取纠正措施，保持在语言发展的关键时期提供可听语言的目标。反过来，这将避免与延迟，未使用或不适当安装助听器相关的口语习得延迟类型。

Thanks to the development of the newborn hearing screening methods, programs are being developed across Canada toidentify permanent childhood hearing loss in infancy and provide early intervention. Successful intervention, often includingthe use of hearing aids, has the potential to support normal development of speech and language. Unfortunately, objectivemethods to assess hearing aid benefit are appropriate are lacking, particularly those that are feasible in the critical earlymonths of infant hearing aid use. We have recently developed a novel system for assessment of brain responses to speech,with specific analysis of responses to 8 important cues in speech. We believe that this novel system could be modified foruse with infants. Our plan includes consultation with expert clinicians alongside collaborative system development andvalidation studies. A prototype system will be built in collaboration with a well-established industrial partner. This systemwould provide a new tool for analysis of which hearing-aid-processed speech sounds are being received by the infant'sauditory brain. This could flag significant barriers to successful intervention, and guide clinical decision making. This willenhance clinician decision-making and parent confidence in the quality of the hearing aid fitting. It is our hope that thistechnology will provide sensitive and detailed objective assessment of hearing aid benefit for infants, which will enable earlyintervention programs to take corrective action early, maintaining the goal of providing access to audible speech during thecritical period of language development. In turn, this will avoid the types of delays in spoken language acquisition known tobe associated with delayed, unused, or inappropriately fitted hearing aids.