The AB-York crescent of sound: An apparatus for assessing spatial-listening skills in children and adults

Abstract

Modern health services need efficient tools for measuring outcomes from interventions, that is, tools of proven efficacy which make minimal demands on the time of clinicians in learning to administer tests and in interpreting results. This paper describes an apparatus designed to meet those requirements. The apparatus administers performance tests of spatial listening for children and adults with unilateral and bilateral cochlear implants. The apparatus was designed with guidance from clinicians. It possesses three key attributes: it is simple to use; the results of tests are scored automatically and are compared with reference data; the apparatus generates comprehensive personalized reports for individual participants that can be included in clinical notes. This paper describes the apparatus and reports results of a test measuring spatial release from masking of speech which illustrates the compatibility between the new apparatus and an older apparatus with which the reference data were gathered.

Keywords:

• Cochlear implants
• Localization
• Spatial listening
• Spatial release from masking

Acknowledgements

PTK and the development of the AB-York Crescent of Sound were supported by Advanced Bionics SARL. RESL was supported by Deafness Research, UK. We thank Shan Huang who collected data from normally hearing adults in the Ring of Sound. A preliminary version of this report was presented to the British Cochlear Implant Group (Cambridge, June 2009).