Data-Driven Approach for Auditory Profiling and Characterization of Individual Hearing Loss.
Raul Sanchez Lopez, Federica Bianchi, Michal Fereczkowski and 2 others
PMID 30384803WHAT IT FOUND
Poor speech-in-noise performance may reflect more than high-frequency hearing loss.
Temporal and binaural processing deficits can form separate profiles. This profiling method is not yet clinically validated.
Key findings
01The reanalysis provided evidence for two independent distortion sources: Type I linked mainly to high-frequency audibility loss, and Type II linked to temporal and binaural processing.
02Listeners in Study 1 formed clear clusters, but listeners in Study 2 were more spread out and no clear groups were identified.
03The classifiers used three nodes, with sensitivity of 95% in Study 1 and 91% in Study 2.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study did not test patients or hearing-aid fitting; it only reanalyzed old test data. Study 2 had no normal-hearing listeners and no binaural temporal fine-structure test, so its profile groups were less clear. The method is sensitive to which tests and which listeners are included in the data set. Only one cognitive measure was included, so the role of cognition cannot be settled.
Declared interests
The paper states that the work was funded by Innovation Fund Grand Solutions. No author declaration about designing the study or writing the manuscript is provided.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use these profiles to guide hearing-aid fitting or therapy now. The paper did not test whether the profiles improve patient outcomes, and the method depends heavily on the original data sets and tests.