Comparison of Persian staggered spondaic word test’s scores before and after rehabilitation in children with amblyaudia

Background and Aim: Amblyaudia is a diag­nostic issue in central auditory processing disor­der (CAPD), which is characterized by asymme­try in dichotic listening performance. This disor­der negatively affects the academic performance of children by influencing their information pro­cessing, reading, attention, etc. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of the dichotic interaural intensity difference (DIID) training on all auditory processing categories of the Buffalo Model using the Persian staggered spondaic word (P-SSW) test. Methods: The study was conducted on 17 chil­dren (11 girls and 6 boys) aged 8−12 years old diagnosed with amblyaudia. All children were first evaluated by the P-SSW test, and then parti­cipated in 10−12 sessions of the DIID training. The P-SSW test was taken again after completing the training program in order to evaluate the training effect. Results: The paired t-test results showed a sig­nificant reduction in the mean scores of decoding (p < 0.001) and tolerance fading memory (p < 0.004) categories as well as the total mean score of P-SSW test after training. The Wilcoxon test also showed the effect of this training on the integration category (p < 0.025). The McNemar test, however, showed no statistically significant effect of the DIID training on the organization category. Conclusion: The DIID training causes signifi­cant improvement in some central auditory pro­cessing categories of the Buffalo Model, inclu­ding decoding, tolerance fading memory and integration. Keywords: Dichotic interaural intensity difference; central auditory processing disorder; amblyaudia

Visual Gender Cues Guide Crossmodal Selective Attending to a Gender-Congruent Voice During Dichotic Listening

Visual input of a face appears to influence the ability to selectively attend to one voice over another simultaneous voice. We examined this crossmodal effect, specifically the role face gender may have on selective attention to male and female gendered simultaneous voices. Using a within-subjects design, participants were presented with a dynamic male face, female face, or fixation cross, with each condition being paired with a dichotomous audio stream of male and female voices reciting different lists of concrete nouns. In Experiment 1a, the female voice was played in the right ear and the male voice in the left ear. In Experiment 1b, both voices were played in both ears with differences in volume mimicking the interaural intensity difference between disparately localized voices in naturalistic situations. Free recall of words spoken by the two voices immediately following stimulus presentation served as a proxy measure of attention. In both sections of the experiment, crossmodal congruity of face gender enhanced same-gender word recall. This effect indicates that crossmodal interaction between voices and faces guides auditory attention. The results contribute to our understanding of how humans navigate the crossmodal relationship between voices and faces to direct attention in social interactions such as those in the cocktail party scenario.

S222 – Sound Localization in Subjects with Tinnitus

Objectives Sound localization in subjects with normal hearing is done by recognition of interaural difference of time, intensity, and phase of sound source. The defect of sound localizing ability may increase the chance of accident, decrease public conversation. Individuals with tinnitus, deprived of the binaural cues, are expected to have difficulty in localizing sound. The purpose of the research is to investigate the sound localizing ability in subjects with tinnitus to localize sound in horizontal plane by comparing with normal control group. Methods 3 groups of subjects participated in this study. The first group consisted of 30 subjects with unilateral tinnitus without hearing disturbance, the second group consisted of 30 subjects with unilateral tinntus, hearing disturbance. Control group was 20 normal hearing adults. Sound localization ability was assessed by means of an array of 8 loudspeakers positioned at the azimuth of 45°each in the horizontal plane at a distance of 100 cm from the subject. Results The localization score increased significantly as tinnitus with hearing disturbance as compared with control group(p<0.05). In the tinnitus without hearing disturbance group as compared with the control group, the localization score increased but there is no stastical significance. Conclusions In the tinnitus without hearing disturbance group, the sound localization ability was decreased but there is no stastical significance. This means that tinnitus has relatively small effect of interaural intensity difference in usual living. It needs further study with similar tinnitus intensity, pitch.