Purpose: Although the existing literature has explored the link between cognitive functioning and speech recognition in noise, the specific role of fluid intelligence still needs to be studied. Given the established association between working memory capacity (WMC) and fluid intelligence and the predictive power of WMC for speech recognition in noise, we aimed to elucidate the mediating role of fluid intelligence.

Method: We used data from the n200 study, a longitudinal investigation into aging, hearing ability, and cognitive functioning. We analyzed two age-matched samples: participants with hearing aids and a group with normal hearing. WMC was assessed using the Reading Span task, and fluid intelligence was measured with Raven's Progressive Matrices. Speech recognition in noise was evaluated using Hagerman sentences presented to target 80% speech-reception thresholds in four-talker babble. Data were analyzed using mediation analysis to examine fluid intelligence as a mediator between WMC and speech recognition in noise.

Results: We found a partial mediating effect of fluid intelligence on the relationship between WMC and speech recognition in noise, and that hearing status did not moderate this effect. In other words, WMC and fluid intelligence were related, and fluid intelligence partially explained the influence of WMC on speech recognition in noise.

Conclusions: This study shows the importance of fluid intelligence in speech recognition in noise, regardless of hearing status. Future research should use other advanced statistical techniques and explore various speech recognition tests and background maskers to deepen our understanding of the interplay between WMC and fluid intelligence in speech recognition.

Objectives: Visual and contextual cues facilitate speech recognition in suboptimal listening conditions (e.g., background noise, hearing loss, hearing aid signal processing). Moreover, successful speech recognition in challenging listening conditions is linked to cognitive abilities such as working memory and fluid intelligence. However, it is unclear which cognitive abilities facilitate the use of visual and contextual cues in individuals with normal hearing and hearing aid users. The first aim was to investigate whether individuals with hearing aid users rely on visual and contextual cues to a higher degree than individuals with normal hearing in a speech-in-noise recognition task. The second aim was to investigate whether working memory and fluid intelligence are associated with the use of visual and contextual cues in these groups.

Design: Groups of participants with normal hearing and hearing aid users with bilateral, symmetrical mild to severe sensorineural hearing loss were included (n = 169 per group). The Samuelsson and Rönnberg task was administered to measure speech recognition in speech-shaped noise. The task consists of an equal number of sentences administered in the auditory and audiovisual modalities, as well as without and with contextual cues (visually presented word preceding the sentence, e.g.,: “Restaurant”). The signal to noise ratio was individually set to 1 dB below the level obtained for 50% correct speech recognition in the hearing-in-noise test administered in the auditory modality. The Reading Span test was used to measure working memory capacity and the Raven test was used to measure fluid intelligence. The data were analyzed using linear mixed-effects modeling.

Results: Both groups exhibited significantly higher speech recognition performance when visual and contextual cues were available. Although the hearing aid users performed significantly worse compared to those with normal hearing in the auditory modality, both groups reached similar performance levels in the audiovisual modality. In addition, a significant positive relationship was found between the Raven test score and speech recognition performance only for the hearing aid users in the audiovisual modality. There was no significant relationship between Reading Span test score and performance.

Conclusions: Both participants with normal hearing and hearing aid users benefitted from contextual cues, regardless of cognitive abilities. The hearing aid users relied on visual cues to compensate for the perceptual difficulties, reaching a similar performance level as the participants with normal hearing when visual cues were available, despite worse performance in the auditory modality. It is important to note that the hearing aid users who had higher fluid intelligence were able to capitalize on visual cues more successfully than those with poorer fluid intelligence, resulting in better speech-in-noise recognition performance.

Introduction: People with congenital deafblindness (CDB) face challenges orienting themselves in time and activities. The aim of the current study is to identify and analyze how an adult with CDB and his support persons co-construct comprehensibility and predictability in his daily life. Method: The study consists of video recordings of everyday dyadic interaction from a residential home. Conversation Analysis was used to explore interactional practices that afford orientation in time and activities. Results: Results highlight several important practices: 1) repetitions of signs or other recognizable linguistic elements in a second turn to identify and confirm a reciprocally understood subject; 2) repetition of a sign placed first in the second part of a question- answer adjacency pair; 3) and the use of a visually based schedule to achieve mutual understanding. Conclusion: The practices identified and analyzed accomplish security, predictability, and comprehensibility for the person with CDB and his support persons.

Evidence suggests that large-scale brain network organization may differ between individuals with limited sensory input (e.g. deaf individuals) and those without sensory impairment. These neural differences may manifest as behavioural differences, such as enhanced visual attention in deaf individuals. Using independent component analyses (ICA) on resting-state fMRI data, we showed that the attention network was more widespread in the hearing compared to the deaf group. This suggests that the organization of the attention network is different in deaf and hearing adults. 

Facial mimicry, the tendency to imitate facial expressions of other individuals, has been shown to play a critical role in the processing of emotion expressions. At the same time, there is evidence suggesting that its role might change when the cognitive demands of the situation increase. In such situations, understanding another person is dependent on working memory. However, whether facial mimicry influences working memory representations for facial emotion expressions is not fully understood. In the present study, we experimentally interfered with facial mimicry by using established behavioral procedures, and investigated how this interference influenced working memory recall for facial emotion expressions. Healthy, young adults (N = 36) performed an emotion expression n-back paradigm with two levels of working memory load, low (1-back) and high (2-back), and three levels of mimicry interference: high, low, and no interference. Results showed that, after controlling for block order and individual differences in the perceived valence and arousal of the stimuli, the high level of mimicry interference impaired accuracy when working memory load was low (1-back) but, unexpectedly, not when load was high (2-back). Working memory load had a detrimental effect on performance in all three mimicry conditions. We conclude that facial mimicry might support working memory for emotion expressions when task load is low, but that the supporting effect possibly is reduced when the task becomes more cognitively challenging.

Background: Age-related changes in auditory and cognitive functions are well-documented, with increased hearing thresholds (e.g., Wiley et al., 2008) and reduced working memory capacity (WMC; e.g., Wingfield et al., 1988) among older adults. Moreover, aging has been linked to poorer speech recognition in noise (e.g., Marsja et al., 2022), highlighting the multifaceted impact of age on auditory and cognitive domains. Our study examined the dynamic relationship between auditory and cognitive changes over time to shed light on the direction of influence between the two. To this aim, we employed change score modeling.

Methods: We analyzed data from 111 normally hearing individuals from the n200 study (https://2024.speech-in-noise.eu/proxy.php?id=81). At Time 1 (T1), their mean age was 61.2 years (SD = 8.00), and at Time 2 (T2), their mean age was 67.0 years (SD = 8.06). We used Latent Change Score modeling to explore the changes in WMC and speech recognition in noise. To measure speech recognition in noise, we used signal-to-noise ratios from the Hearing in Noise Test during speech-shaped noise. The reading span test was used as a measure for WMC.

Results and Conclusion: Preliminary results showed a decline in WMC, signified by the negative relationship between Reading Span at T1 and changes in Reading Span at T2. This negative relationship indicates that individuals with higher initial WMC experienced subsequent declines in their cognitive abilities. Furthermore, our analysis revealed a negative relationship between changes in speech recognition in noise at T2 and Reading Span at T1. This relationship suggests that individuals with higher initial WMC experienced less decline in their speech recognition in noise over time. Further research with additional time points may be needed to fully elucidate the complex relationship between cognitive and auditory changes over time.

Background It can be challenging for people with intellectual disabilities to convey their thoughts and opinions because of cognitive, speech and language impairments. Consequently, facilitating their ability to communicate using augmentative and alternative communication methods is essential. The picture-based framework Talking Mats has been applied in many studies and has been shown to be successful in facilitating communication and soliciting views from individuals with intellectual disabilities and communication difficulties. The aim of this study was to describe the views of students with intellectual disabilities and communication difficulties on speech and reading activities and to examine whether valence scores (from negative to positive) on these views were associated with performance on tests of their corresponding abilities. Methods This is a cross-sectional quantitative survey study. A group of 111 students with intellectual disabilities and communication difficulties aged 7–21 were interviewed about their speech and reading activities using the visual framework Talking Mats. Their answers were scored on a three-grade like-dislike continuum and were correlated with their results on adapted tests of the corresponding abilities. Findings The students expressed their views on speech and reading activities. The scored views on speech were positively associated with speech production, and the scored views on reading activities were positively related to reading ability. This suggests that their opinions as expressed through Talking Mats were consistent and reliable. Conclusions Most students with intellectual disabilities and communicative difficulties can reliably express their own opinions of their abilities when they are provided with a clear visual structure and pictorial support, such as Talking Mats. In this study, this was seen for students with a mild intellectual disability from age seven and onwards and for students with a more severe intellectual disability from 12 years of age and onwards.

In the study of communication, meaning-making may be explained as a process consisting of collaborative and distributed actions between participants in interaction. This view is of special importance in communication with individuals living with deafblindness. Staff working in group housing for people with congenital deafblindness can be considered as communication partners. Using a qualitative and explorative design, 18 communication partners have been individually interviewed concerning their perceptions of strategies to facilitate social interaction with adults with congenital deafblindness. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using content analysis. The analyses generated three categories of perceived strategies 1) having essential competence and qualities, 2) getting to know and understand each other, 3) use of facilitating techniques. The results indicate that staff continuity in homes for people with deafblindness is key for the well-being of the people cared for. Combinations of perceived experiences from interviews, and forthcoming video-ethnographic observations, may form the basis of training programs.

A small body of research and reports from educational and clinicalpractice suggest that teaching literacy skills may facilitate the devel-opment of speech sound production in students with intellectualdisabilities (ID). However, intervention research is needed to test thepotential connection. This study aimed to investigate whether twelveweeks of systematic, digital literacy intervention enhanced speechsound production in students with ID and communication difficulties.A sample of 121 students with ID were assigned to four differentgroups: phonics-based, comprehension-based, a combination withboth phonics- and comprehension-based intervention anda comparison group with teaching-as-usual. Speech sound productionwas assessed before and after the intervention. The results on the datawithout the imputed variable suggested a significant positive effect ofsystematic, digital literacy interventions on speech sound production.However, results from sensitivity analyses with imputed missing datawas more ambiguous, with the effect only approaching significance(ps = .05–.07) for one of the interventions. Nonetheless, we tentativelysuggest that systematic, digital literacy intervention could supportspeech development in students with ID and communication difficul-ties. Future research should be done to confirm and further elucidatethe functional mechanisms of this link, so that we may have a betterunderstanding and can improve instruction and the pivotal abilities ofspeech and reading.