Speech discrimination and word identification with a consumer-level bone-conduction headset and remote microphone for children with normal hearing

Abstract

Objective

This study investigated the use of bone-conduction headsets paired to a wireless, remote microphone on speech discrimination and word identification for children with normal hearing.

Design

Children were tested with and without the headset, using the McCormick speech discrimination test in quiet and in speech-shaped noise to measure word-discrimination thresholds. Additionally, open-set word identification in noise was assessed while children were simultaneously engaged in a visual-monitoring task.

Study sample

Twenty normal-hearing children, aged 4–11 years.

Results

Median word-discrimination threshold in quiet (n = 20) was 20.5 dB(A) without a headset and 11.5 dB(A) with a headset (Z = –3.826, p = 0.0001). In noise, the median word-discrimination threshold (n = 20) was 52 dB(A) without a headset and 40.5 dB(A) with a headset (Z = –3.926, p< 0.0001). For open-set word identification (n = 11), children performed significantly better with a headset than without it, with an average improvement of 23 percentage points (t(10) = −5.227, p = 0.0004, two tailed).

Conclusions

A bone-conduction headset paired to a Bluetooth microphone improved discrimination of distant speech in quiet and in noise and open-set word identification in noise.

Keywords:

• Bone conduction
• remote microphone systems
• speech discrimination
• speech identification

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to Erin Picou for kindly providing her Listening Effort Test procedure and code. We thank Dr Alison Sansome for her support on behalf of the sponsor of the study and Dr Debi Vickers for helpful discussion around the topic of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

Dr Tamsin Holland Brown conceptualised the idea of using bone-conduction headphones paired to a Bluetooth microphone to support children with glue ear and auditory-processing difficulties but has not benefitted financially. The other authors did not declare any conflicts of interest.

Data availability statement

Anonymised data are available on request to the authors.

Notes

1 Effect sizes were calculated using G*Power 3 (Faul et al. 2007) assuming a correlation of 0.5 across groups

Additional information

Funding

The main source of funding for this study was the Kate Farrer foundation. MSC was partly funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) UK, Grant code [MR/S002537/1]. Some of the equipment used in this study was acquired using funds from the Stuart Gatehouse Applied Research Grant 2015, awarded to JM and MSC by the British Society of Audiology toward the Bone conduction In Glue ear study.