Measuring Speech Discrimination Ability in Sleeping Infants Using fNIRS-A Proof of Principle.
Onn Wah Lee, Demi Gao, Tommy Peng and 4 others
PMID 39850978WHAT IT FOUND
fNIRS can measure speech discrimination in sleeping infants.
Responses varied by sound contrast and ear tested. The left ear showed slower responses than the right. This supports using fNIRS for early auditory assessment without waking the baby.
Key findings
01The study demonstrated that fNIRS can measure speech discrimination in sleeping infants using a nonsilence baseline paradigm.
02Responses to the subtlest sound contrast (Ga/Ba) had a later positive component latency and a much smaller negative component amplitude than other contrasts.
03Stimulation of the left ear produced responses with a significantly later latency than stimulation of the right ear.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 16 infants with normal hearing. It was a proof-of-principle study, so it did not test infants with hearing loss. The left and right ear groups were different infants, so the latency difference might be due to individual differences rather than the ear itself. The study did not establish a clinical cut-off score for identifying hearing impairment.
Declared interests
The authors have a patent application related to this work and may receive financial benefits from a commercial device.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this test is ready for clinical use. It was a small study on hearing infants only. It shows the method works in principle, but it has not been validated for diagnosing hearing loss or guiding treatment in infants with impairment.