Evaluation of the preliminary auditory profile test battery in an international multi-centre study

Abstract

Objective: This paper describes the composition and international multi-centre evaluation of a battery of tests termed the preliminary auditory profile. It includes measures of loudness perception, listening effort, speech perception, spectral and temporal resolution, spatial hearing, self-reported disability and handicap, and cognition. Clinical applicability and comparability across different centres are investigated. Design: Headphone tests were conducted in five centres divided over four countries. Effects of test-retest, ear, and centre were investigated. Results for normally-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) listeners are presented. Study sample: Thirty NH listeners aged 19–39 years, and 72 HI listeners aged 22–91 years with a broad range of hearing losses were included. Results: Test-retest reliability was generally good and there were very few right/left ear effects. Results of all tests were comparable across centres for NH listeners after baseline correction to account for necessary differences between test materials. For HI listeners, results were comparable across centres for the language-independent tests. Conclusions: The auditory profile forms a clinical test battery that is applicable in four different languages. Even after baseline correction, differences between test materials have to be taken into account when interpreting results of language-dependent tests in HI listeners.

Key Words::

• Hearing impaired
• clinical tests
• international comparisons
• multi-centre study
• audiological diagnosis
• auditory profile

Notes

Acknowledgements

Parts of this work have been presented at the International Hearing Aid Research Conference, August 16, 2008, Lake Tahoe, California: Evaluation of the ‘auditory profile’ test battery in an international multi-centre study. This research was part of the European project HearCom (Hearing in the Communication Society, Vlaming et al, 2011). Materials of several of the tests from the preliminary auditory profile are available from the HearCom website (www.hearcom.eu): Matrix sentence frameworks in the four languages, examples of words and non-words from the lexical decision-making test for the four languages, and the Gothenburg profile questionnaire in the four languages. We thank Daniel Berg for technical support and implementation of the tests on the measurement platform and Kirsten Wagener for her work on consolidation of the speech tests. Finally we thank the test subjects for their participation, and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

Declaration of interest: Supported by grants from the European Union FP6, Project 0004171 HEARCOM. The information in this document is provided as is, and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose. The user thereof uses the information at his/her sole risk and liability. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. Currently, the auditory profile tests are only available through Hörtech (www.hoertech.de). One of the co-authors (Birger Kollmeier) is research director of this company.

Notes

1. NL-AMC: no. 05/127 # 05.17.0934, date August 3, 2005; DE-HZO: “Klinische Tests zur Bestimmung individueller Hördefizite und Kommuniationsfähigkeiten”, dated November 15, 2006; UK-ISVR: 791, dated February 13, 2007; SE-LINK: M83-06; NL-VUMC: MEC05/12 - 2006/171, dated November 2, 2006.

2. We chose the 20 cu levels (between soft and medium loudness) instead of the more common 25 cu levels (medium loudness) based on the results from Brand and Hohmann (2002). They found that median levels at 25 cu were 80.3 and 88.6 dB HL for NH and HI listeners respectively. We found this too loud for using as measurement levels, since these levels are substantially higher than the typical level of conversational speech (roughly around 65 dB SPL). Moreover, the 20-cu level is (as opposed to the 25-cu level) located on the lower, less steep part of the loudness curve (see Figure 5, from Brand & Hohmann, 2002), leaving more room for manipulation of signal levels and the dynamic range of the speech signals without approaching uncomfortable levels.

3. The modifications also concerned changes in test paradigm in order to improve test-retest reliability. Indeed, the present study shows smaller within-subject SDs compared to Van Esch & Dreschler (2011).

4/5. Classifications moderate, substantial, and almost perfect refer to the amount of correspondence between test and retest and to ICC values between 0.41–0.6, 0.61–0.8, and 0.81–1 respectively (analogous to the classification of Kappa's coefficient, see e.g. Landis & Koch, 1977).