Exploration of the Behavioral, Electrophysiological, and Psychometric Effects of KTH Speech-Tracking Training in Noise in Normal Hearing Adults

Looking at hearing loss through the WHO-ICD model for disability reveals that auditory interventions do not necessarily address all of the components of auditory disability. Auditory training has been proposed as a solution to address activity-level deficits. The purpose of this study was to examine structure- and activity-level changes as the result of auditory training for normal hearing individuals training in the presence of noise. Thirty adults with normal hearing were placed into three experimental groups: A group engaging in active auditory training in noise, a group listening to speech material in noise, and a control group that performed no activity in noise. Measurements were taken of the rate and errors made for the auditory training. Performance measures on a word recognition task in noise (the QuickSIN), electrophysiological changes on an analysis of portions of the frequency following response (FFT), and self-reported measurements from the Speech and Spatial Qualities of Sound (SSQ), were all measured before and after to monitor changes as the result of training. Results show significant improvement on the auditory training task in terms of both rate and number of errors made. ANOVA’s reveal a significant effect of test condition on performance on the QuickSIN. There were mixed results in analyses of the differences in the electrophysiological measurements. There were no significant effects of training condition on answers to the SSQ. Similar to other Auditory training studies, results are mixed. This research serves as a proof-of-concept on normal-hearing subjects. The next step is to examine disordered populations