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.

The Education Act in both Sweden and Norway stipulates that schools must enable all pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes that form the basis for continued learning and active participation in working life and society (Opplæringslova, 1998; SFS 2010:800, 2010). 

In a report of Scandinavian research published between 2008–2017, Kermit (2018) concludes that children and adolescents with HL perform below peers in school, and that they often struggle with social relationships in kindergarten and school, thus running a higher risk of psychosocial problems compared to peers with typical hearing. It has been found that children and adolescents with HL are not involved in making decisions about their learning environment, including special needs education support.

We conducted a pilot study using the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), investigating how psychosocial health in children who are deaf/hard-of-hearing (D/HH) in Norway, was related to peer relationships and educational support as reported by their guardians.

As a follow up to the surveys, we will conduct focus group interviews with teachers of children who D/HH to investigate their experiences of the educational support for, and psychosocial health of, these children.

Preliminary results from the surveys showed that guardians reported significantly higher SDQ scores (M= 10.5) than the normative data (M= 5.8). Descriptive data for our sample showed that children in compulsory integrated school scored higher on both internal (emotional, hyperactivity) (M=6.20) and external (peer problems, conduct) (M=5.12) scales than children attending school for hard-of-hearing (Internal M= 3.83, External M= 3.67). 

Additional statistical analysis will be presented and discussed within Bronfenbrenner’s Socio-Ecological Framework as a sensitizing concept. Further implications and future research will be discussed.

Objective

Using data from the n200-study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between behavioural (the Swedish HINT and Hagerman speech-in-noise tests) and self-report (Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Questionnaire (SSQ)) measures of listening under adverse conditions.

Design

The Swedish HINT was masked with a speech-shaped noise (SSN), the Hagerman was masked with a SSN and a four-talker babble, and the subscales from the SSQ were used as a self-report measure. The HINT and Hagerman were administered through an experimental hearing aid.

Study sample

This study included 191 hearing aid users with hearing loss (mean PTA4 = 37.6, SD = 10.8) and 195 normally hearing adults (mean PTA4 = 10.0, SD = 6.0).ResultsThe present study found correlations between behavioural measures of speech-in-noise and self-report scores of the SSQ in normally hearing individuals, but not in hearing aid users.

Conclusion

The present study may help identify relationships between clinically used behavioural measures, and a self-report measure of speech recognition. The results from the present study suggest that use of a self-report measure as a complement to behavioural speech in noise tests might help to further our understanding of how self-report, and behavioural results can be generalised to everyday functioning.

Purpose: The study aimed to assess the relationship between 1) speech-recognition-in-noise, mask type, working memory capacity (WMC), inhibitory control, and 2) self-rated listening effort, speech material, and mask type, in older adults with and without hearing-impairment. It was of special interest to assess the relationship between WMC, inhibitory control, and speech-recognition-in-noise when informational maskers masked target speech.

Method: A mixed design was used. A group (N= 24) of older (mean age = 69.7 years) HI individuals, and a group of age-normal hearing adults (mean age = 59.3 years, SD = 6.5) participated in the study. The participants were presented with auditory tests in a sound attenuated room and the cognitive tests in a quiet office. The participants were asked to rate listening effort after being presented with energetic and informational background maskers in two different speech materials used in this study (i.e., Hearing in Noise Test and the Hagerman Test). Linear-Mixed Effects models were set up to assess the effect of the two different speech materials, energetic and informational maskers, hearing ability, WMC, inhibitory control, and self-rated listening effort.

Results: Results showed that WMC and inhibitory control was of importance for speech-recognition-in-noise, even when controlling for PTA4 (pure tone average 4) hearing thresholds and age, when the maskers were informational. Concerning listening effort, on the other hand,  the results suggest that hearing ability, but not cognitive abilities, is important for self-rated listening effort in speech-recognition-in-noise.

Conclusion: Speech-in-noise recognition is more dependent on WMC for older adults in informational maskers than in energetic maskers. Hearing ability is a stronger predictor than cognition for self-rated listening effort.

Objectives: Previous research suggests that there is a robust relationship between cognitive functioning and speech-in-noise performance for older adults with age-related hearing loss. For normal-hearing adults, on the other hand, the research is not entirely clear. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine the relationship between cognitive functioning, aging, and speech-in-noise, in a group of older normal-hearing persons and older persons with hearing loss who wear hearing aids.

Design: We analyzed data from 199 older normal-hearing individuals (mean age = 61.2) and 200 older individuals with hearing loss (mean age = 60.9) using multigroup structural equation modeling. Four cognitively related tasks were used to create a cognitive functioning construct: the reading span task, a visuospatial working memory task, the semantic word-pairs task, and Raven’s progressive matrices. Speech-in-noise, on the other hand, was measured using Hagerman sentences. The Hagerman sentences were presented via an experimental hearing aid to both normal hearing and hearing-impaired groups. Furthermore, the sentences were presented with one of the two background noise conditions: the Hagerman original speech-shaped noise or four-talker babble. Each noise condition was also presented with three different hearing processing settings: linear processing, fast compression, and noise reduction.

Results: Cognitive functioning was significantly related to speech-in-noise identification. Moreover, aging had a significant effect on both speech-in-noise and cognitive functioning. With regression weights constrained to be equal for the two groups, the final model had the best fit to the data. Importantly, the results showed that the relationship between cognitive functioning and speech-in-noise was not different for the two groups. Furthermore, the same pattern was evident for aging: the effects of aging on cognitive functioning and aging on speech-in-noise were not different between groups.

Conclusion: Our findings revealed similar cognitive functioning and aging effects on speech-in-noise performance in older normal-hearing and aided hearing-impaired listeners. In conclusion, the findings support the Ease of Language Understanding model as cognitive processes play a critical role in speech-in-noise independent from the hearing status of elderly individuals.

The presentation aims to discuss students' perceptions of support from peers and teachers, organising and planning studies in distance learning, perceptions of students' own learning, and perceptions of inclusion in digital teaching. The discussion will be grounded in survey results from a pilot project and in relation to Universal Design for Learning, where inclusion is a key element.

Cognitive abilities are important for a number of human attributes, such as making sense of communication, holding information active in memory, and making decisions. When it is the goal to focus on a single target voice, and resist intrusions from irrelevant information, cognitive inhibition can aid us in our endeavour. Cognitive inhibition is thought to support and co-operate with working memory. Abilities such as cognitive inhibition and working memory are also important for speech processing, even more so when listening to speech under adverse conditions. In order to assess different difficulties that can arise in every day listening situations, it´s of importance to have solid methods for measuring cognitive abilities. In the present study we present a task assessing cognitive inhibition, and how it relates to individual working memory capacity (WMC), and speech-recognition-in-noise. Forty-six young normally-hearing individuals were presented with a cognitive test battery, as well as a speech-in-noise test. Our results suggest that individuals with high WMC, also exhibit good cognitive inhibition. The results also indicate that those who perform well in the cognitive inhibition task need less favourable signal-to-noise-ratios in the speech-recognition task. Our findings indicate that capacity to resist semantic interference can be used to predict performance in speech-recognition tasks when listening under adverse conditions. 

Cognitive abilities, such as working memory capacity (WMC), lexical decision making, and cognitive inhibition, can help predict performance on speech-recognition-in-noise tasks. Working memory is assumed to play a major part in every day listening situations, storing and actively working with relevant information, while inhibitory control helps to suppress and separate irrelevant information from interfering with the information processing. With increasing age, comes decreasing cognitive abilities, such as declines in WMC, speed of information processing, and inhibitory control, leading to problems when selectively attending to speech while inhibiting interfering distractors. The aim of the present study was to examine age-related declines in WMC, inhibitory control, and lexical decision making, and their respective roles when listening to speech under adverse listening conditions. Twenty-four young normally-hearing (NH), and 24 elderly ( for their age) NH individuals participated in the study. They completing a cognitive test battery assessing WMC, cognitive inhibition, and lexical decision making, as well as a closed-set (Hagerman sentences) and an open-set (HINT) speech-recognition-in-noise task masked with different maskers. We will present results comparing cognitive abilities in younger normally-hearing individuals with elderly normally-hearing individuals, and how age and cognitive abilities relates to performance on speech-recognition-in-noise tasks.

In the present study we aimed to investigate individual differences in cognitive inhibition, WMC, and how they relate to performance on a speech-recognition-in-noise task. Sixteen young normally-hearing individuals were presented with a cognitive test battery, as well as a sentence corpus masked by 5 different maskers, targeting 80% speech-recognition. One masker was a slightly modulated (10%) speech-shaped noise (SSN), 2 maskers were constructed by modulating the SSN with the envelopes from a single female talker, and the international speech test signal (ISTS). We also masked the target sentences with the ISTS, and a single female talker reading a passage in a Swedish newspaper. Our results showed that cognitive inhibition is significantly related to performance when maskers with meaningful, semantic information is used. The results further indicate that young normally-hearing individuals can take advantage of temporal and spectral dips to fill in missing information. Our findings suggest that choice of speech material is of importance for the outcome in speech-recognition-in-noise tasks. We further propose that tasks of cognitive inhibition can be used to predict performance in a speech-recognition task.