Visual Temporal Acuity Is Related to Auditory Speech Perception Abilities in Cochlear Implant Users.
Kelly N Jahn, Ryan A Stevenson, Mark T Wallace
PMID 27764001WHAT IT FOUND
In ten adults with cochlear implants, those who identified which of two flashing lights appeared first at very short intervals also scored higher on auditory-only word and sentence recognition.
This links visual timing skill to speech perception, but does not show that one causes the other.
Key findings
01Better visual temporal acuity, indicated by a lower threshold for judging which of two lights flashed first, was significantly correlated with higher scores on auditory-only word and sentence recognition tests.
02Participants classified as proficient CI users based on word recognition scores had significantly better visual temporal acuity than those classified as non-proficient.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was very small (10 participants), making the results preliminary and difficult to generalize. There was no control group of normal-hearing individuals, so it is unknown if this relationship is specific to cochlear implant users. The study design was correlational, so it cannot determine whether better visual timing causes better speech perception, vice versa, or if both are driven by other factors like attention or cognitive ability. Participants varied widely in age at implantation, duration of implant use, and device configuration (bilateral, bimodal, or unilateral), which may have influenced the results.
Declared interests
The study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that training visual temporal skills will improve auditory speech perception. The study only shows that these abilities are related in this small group; it does not prove that improving one will cause the other to improve.